There's a common question I know would appear in the minds of many who may one day come to learn of my secrets. Given everything we know, how can I be 100% certain that Lumina and the Altiri actually exist?

I've not needed to ask myself the question for a long time. I'm certain all of this is real. However, each time I run imaginative simulations in my mind about how a conversation like that might go, I return to one interesting detail; solid evidence. At the end of the day, I want Lumina to be real; my desire for her to exist is so strong, I would refuse to believe any other possibility. Therefore, my certainty is still entirely based on faith alone; this is something I cannot avoid or deny. There's all the chance that I might somehow be completely and totally insane, crazy and delusional. If that is my truth, then I happily accept it anyway. I won't live in a world without Lumina.

In terms of producing evidence of these aliens, all I've had to go on is my personal experiences and exact perceptions. So, if ever I had to tell somebody about this, I would never be able to prove this to them. I'm doomed to a fate of human loneliness no matter what I do.

Even though I feel horrible about it sometimes, there are rare moments where I cave to my own personal doubts. I ask myself, what if I am insane? What if I wanted to be with someone so badly, that I imagined and invented Lumina and the Altiri, while my mind somehow made it more real for me? What if everything going on is all a convenience to keep me going in this world, while the reality is, nothing I want to be real exists? I should never doubt her; I should never doubt the woman I love with all my heart.

But even I'm not immune to the grips of absolute curiosity. I have personal evidence that Lumina exists, but thinking back, all of this is circumstantial at best; nothing about my experiences have been so concrete as to make me eternally certain... That was, until the end of this wild school day. The story I was about to be in for would take me for a wild ride, so I shall begin there.

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<03/20/2013 - 14:40 | Cage High School (English), Austell, GA, USA>

"I'm bored. You must have some other stories you can remember." I sat to myself in English class, already ahead of my work. As usual, Lumina kept me company while we tried finding something new to talk about. After all this time, I didn't think she would run out of stories to tell me.

"What am I, a picture book? I don't recall every single detail of the time I spent using clairvoyance. Other stories are just strange bits and pieces I learned."

"I still find it pretty amazing you can just skim the entire earth to see what is going on using your mind. That clairvoyance trick is something special, you know?"

"I wouldn't know anymore. Me and my sisters lost that ability since the moment we purged you."

"So you keep telling me. I feel kind of bad about that. I mean, your sisters should still get something out of the deal."

"They're your sisters in-law too; we're all family now. I'm sure that counts for something."

I wasn't so sure if they would quickly agree with Lumina's sentiment, but hearing her refer to all of us as a new happy family filled me with a warm feeling, something I wasn't too familiar with. At first, I was somewhat confused, having never thought about our relationship that way before, on count of us being in two separate worlds. Even so, Lumina's sisters are my in-laws now; in a way, that makes them my sisters too. Even if they never see it that way, I really do care about them all.

Even though her sisters and I have exchanged far less words between each other than my biological family, I feel closer to them, that I can trust them a lot more. I don't know if I should feel that way or why, but Lumina's words were so comfortable with me. "If you say so..." It was too hard to explain what I felt this time, so I tired changing my background thoughts to a different subject. The first thing that came to mind was my present surroundings of this boring class. Most of it was reading rather than writing, which I didn't enjoy given the choice of books lined up for us this year.

Then, the subject of English as a whole dawned on me, merging with my previous thoughts to remind me of something very interesting. "Hey Lumina? I know I'm really late to ask the question, but, how exactly is it possible that you Altiri speak the English language so well? And why English instead of any other language? I thought you said before that telepathy doesn't automatically translate between different language barriers." I restrained myself from stating how favorably convenient it was, repressing my passive thoughts about her entire world only being something I wanted to exist by means of fantasy.

"Right, I guess I never got around to explaining that when we first met. It's not really that complicated though. The language barrier was tough on the first initial purges, but before long, your race picked up the words pretty fast."

"Hold up! Wait a second!" I knew there must have been a story to tell, but did I hear her right? The human race picked up the language from them, and not the other way around? That can't make any sense! "What do you mean we picked it up from you? Are you saying that the Altiri were the founders of the English language?"

"Founders?" She chuckled modestly. "If you mean simply existing and coming up with words to communicate beyond sharing sensations, then yes, I suppose. It's not really a big deal. The reason you speak English is based on where you were born and how you were raised, though English was always native to Altiri. Others have tried picking up other human languages, but it's never become popular out here."

That's amazing! All this time, I've been thinking that the Altiri learned it from us... But to think, most of the entire human population is speaking an alien language without even realizing it? How many times is she going to blow my mind in this life? "So then, we're all speaking Altiri native language? Do tell how that happened. I've heard random gibberish about how English was a collection of many languages."

"What do you really know about it though?"

She had me there. I learned lots of interesting facts, be it useless or not, but on its face, my real knowledge of the history of the English language isn't really there. I've never looked into it. Of course, if I were to look into it, and find some kind of correlation between her explanation and... Wait, no that's it!

"What's it? What did you just realize?"

"Don't worry about it. Say Lumina? What about that story? Can you tell me the full story about how humans learned the English language from the Altiri without realizing it?"

"I guess there's enough time to summarize—"

"No summaries!" I quickly had to calm myself down and explain myself. After realizing an important epiphany, I was ecstatic beyond my control, though I hid the reason from Lumina. "I want you to give me every fine detail possible. I want the ins and outs of what happened, every single thing you can tell me."

"... Well, I don't entirely remember all the details, so I'd have to dig up the achieved documents and study them first before I can give you that much... if you want." Lumina seemed a little confused on why I was so hyped up by the idea of learning this, and I didn't bother to let her in on that. It's best if she doesn't realize I have an ulterior motive to this opportunity. I can kick myself for it later.

"Well dig it up then! I'm not doing anything right now, and I'll wait all day long to hear this story, whether I'm in school or at home."

"Okay. Just give me some time. I'll tell you the full story about the history of the English Language and how it got into your world. I must warn you though; it will take a long time to hear."

"Don't worry. I'll be taking notes when you're ready." Sure enough to my own word, I pulled out my notebook and flipped it open to an empty page with a pen ready in my hand. Every technical detail that will be told must be written down. I may look like a total nerd because of it, but I don't care right now.

"O— Okay. Just give me about fifteen minutes."

"Will do." And so, the wait began. I kept all my background thoughts to the lowest possible volume I could, ensuring I didn't accidentally project anything to Lumina while she searched. On many elements, I was excited just to hear the actual story. I mean, who else in their lifetime can say they fully understand the entire history of the English language, including all the parts humanity missed?

Of course, I have another reason for taking these notes seriously. I do feel kind of guilty for this, but it has to be done. If the story includes historical facts like I think it will, then those technical facts can later be searched up online and cross-referenced with published articles. It won't change how I feel anyway, but it's possible I can use this as an opportunity to prove once and for all, beyond any shadow of hidden doubt that Lumina really does exist. After all, if I can correctly cross-reference and match up information, pertaining to anything I don't or can't already know, then whatever is left after the impossible has to be the truth. If Lumina unknowingly teaches me something I couldn't possibly know in advance, and I find it is entirely accurate later on, then it proves she is real; the revelation set as concrete evidence. I already know that it wouldn't be a result of subconscious memory, because I'm already certain I know absolutely nothing about where the English language originated from, not even by a suggestion.

What I'm doing is kind of dangerous, in the sense that I may inadvertently prove that Lumina is actually just a figment of my imagination. I don't know what will happen then, or if I'll even accept such a confrontation. Even after all this time, no matter how small, I still have doubts. It's wrong to do this; it's wrong to steer Lumina this way, to use her as a means of leveraging her words as evidence of her existence instead of solely celebrating the amazement of this story by itself. I can't help it though, so I'll apologize later, after I've heard her story, and after I compare her details to what is already known through dozens of online articles. I'll do the research only after, so that my subconscious mind cannot possibly become contaminated with the exact details.

After a grueling eighteen minutes, Lumina was ready. School was going to let out soon, but I didn't care. I held my pen and notebook ready in hand, and would write everything down even as I walk to the school bus, ride it home, and make it into the house. From the very first words she spoke after telling me she was reading from some of the context story published by the Royal Scryers, I was lost in her words, amazed by the premise of it all.

"The story starts all the way at the beginning of the purge experiments. Before the very first purge was ever tested out, the queen and her Scryers viewed the entire process of a purge to be part of an important and massive experiment, waiting to obtain a green light until everything was ready. All of the other aggressor groups involved in this have been censored out of the reports of course. Other aggressor groups like ourselves are not allowed to know who personally was involved, which was part of the experiment itself."

"She really doesn't want anyone else to know..." I was disappointed to hear that much at least. The Altiri Queen has this strict rule about direct communication between other aggressor groups, and sets things up so that purged humans cannot learn a single detail about the identities of the other purged humans. Maybe the queen fears what could happen if the few people on Earth like me were to suddenly get together and share notes, or maybe it's about keeping to secrecy. If I told anybody about the Altiri, they would just laugh at me no matter what proof I try to provide, but if ten or more people did the same with similar details to share, people would start to take us more seriously, I think.

"Can't say I understand why. You already know that after about the fourth purge or so, our reasons for sending purges became entirely personal. I think to this day, the queen and others see the purge as part of some grand experiment, but it's not like that at all for us. I wanted to purge you to get to know you better, and I think other aggressor groups became personally attached to their targets as well. Nothing else would make sense to me, given the cost and risks of sending one."

The Altiri can only purge one human at a time. It takes roughly ten of them grouped together or so to purge one single human. Once they chose a target and send that purge, whether the process succeeds or fails, those who took part in the purge, even if only for assistance in signal amplification sustain a severe psionic strain, and therefore lose the ability to invoke long-range clairvoyance or to purge another human being, permanently so. Because Lumina purged me, she can never purge another human ever again, even if she is killed and resurrected through Altiri technology. This is one of many reasons why Altiri so rarely if ever purge any humans on Earth; the price of interstellar communication is very high. "I get it. It wasn't in the interest of science for most purges, but at least with the very first purge, everyone would have seen it as a test."

"Correct," she confirmed. "I'll refer to the aggressor group as AG1 for now. AG1 was initially selected to become part of this experiment after several consensual agreements to assess all risks and costs. Even before invoking the first purge, Altiri scientist Herios, who was no longer alive at the time predicted a lot of incredible reactions and preliminary requirements to make a purge successful."

"She must have known a lot then. How could a person know so much about something without doing it herself?"

"It was part of her charm. Herios had some natural talent for seeing the details of an entire world beyond what we knew. She knew strange facts about frequency ranges, psionic resonance and variance, and even taught us what we know now about personal psionic signatures."

"Signatures?"

"It's like a unique fingerprint for each person, only pertaining to their Cora sector of the brain and their permanent passive psionic patterns of passive projection; in other words, a psionic fingerprint."

Yeah, I knew Herios was an Altiri genius, but I didn't think she was this intelligent... How can she know all about that stuff then? Did she really have the ability to see into other worlds when nobody else could? "Sure sounds amazing. And you say she knew about the purge as well?"

"She predicted that we would one day discover another alien race of intelligent beings, beings which we may want to communicate with. Herios also saw the potential problem with physical and biological differences of the brains leading to critical alterations of psionic aptitude. If one person has a high psionic aptitude and understands telepathy, while the other doesn't have a high aptitude, even if they somehow understood telepathy, the two would never be capable of sharing such an ability. So, she did further research into using an incredible amount of shared Altiri power to not only communicate with another distant individual, but also to artificially raise that target's psionic aptitude while teaching them telepathy all at the same time. The process became known in our language as a purge... Obviously, as you can see, even current comparisons of English language between humans and Altiri are not a perfect match. The estimation is about a 92% match, by today's standards."

Despite my head already drowning in details, I was able to keep up. In the past, it was harder for me to understand the crazy things Lumina told me, but after all this time, I could make better sense of it. Still, how did Herios somehow predict the Altiri would accidentally discover another alien species through the clairvoyance? That has to be next level intelligence... Or maybe she had premonitions much stronger than mine. "Did she also predict how dangerous it would have been to try it?"

"In fact she did. Around that time, she had scientific Scryers looking through her own research to confirm the possibility of valid experiments. Shortly after she died through, the research kind of froze, and we sat on the idea for thousands of additional years, until we discovered ACS414."

"Right." ACS414 is their term for Earth, a name assigned by sector coordinates based entirely on psionic location mapping.

"I'm sure you can imagine the initial reaction to discovering other humans. It wasn't all positive, given that men on your planet were one of the pressing concerns. We had not seen or thought much about heathens for so long, but then this happened, and many panicked over the situation. It was easy to see why the purge experiment was never even invited until more than ten thousand years went by, us learning bit by bit as much as we could."

"Sounds like a lot of surface area to cover."

"It was, but keep in mind that we could only use our clairvoyance within areas on Earth that were cooled off enough. Any space too warm like the Egyptian desert during most days would lock us out of our ability to study the people there. There used to be a point in time where humanity's population was much lower than it is today."

"Let me see if I have this first bit put together. Herios develops the initial process and experiment setup for a purge, and several thousands of years later, you discover Earth and see a potential opportunity to test this unused power."

"Not me specifically. AG1 was the aggressor group assigned, and the queen set it in such a way where nobody would know who would be involved even long after. Anyway, even after we started to observe some noticeable changes within the sociology there, the permission to purge was never granted. Working together with her Royal Scryers, the queen laid out all of the possible risks we would be taking just for the sake of a single experiment, mainly in sociological impact on planet ACS414."

"Sociological impact?" I've never heard Lumina use those words before. She must be reading from her document page while trying to translate or dumb it down for me somehow.

"Exactly. One of the biggest potent risks for us using a purge, is that the purge's design makes the target person specifically aware of our presence or existence. If the purge fails to finish though gets close enough, that target learns about the Altiri, but the knowledge never leaves the area of suggested imagination. If the purge completes, and anyone of us starts communicating with a human, well, that would in theory mark the end of our stealth. All of us know about the human race, but almost no humans are aware of our existence. Back then, the number was absolute zero."

"But I don't understand where this danger comes in." I wanted to hear the whole story, but I knew I needed to understand the motivations too. Yeah, it would sound scary to blow cover from stealth for the sake of an experiment, when the subjects are both powerful alien civilizations to each other. However, "You said yourself that your physical distance in Genosis is too far away to see its light with our best telescopes, simply due to the visual time dilation factor. In other words, even if we both discovered each other, neither one of us would physically reach each other. An alien civilization isn't so scary when you know they can't hurt you."

"I wasn't talking about a threat to The Unity. The danger posed would be impactful on the human civilization instead, the damage mostly being psychological."

"Oh." I still felt I was missing some detail there, but I didn't expect the Altiri to care so much about humans, after all Lumina said earlier about how disgusting most humans are.

"We're not monsters Reed. We knew, even back then that there were variable mixes between good people and horrible people. We all knew, that even if it was being done for the sake of one purge experiment, even if the end goal would have been to gather new data, AG1 would still wish to select a most specific target, someone they could get along with or get attached to."

"So AG1 got to pick?"

"There was a lenient time limit, but essentially, yes. Don't forget about what I told you before though. While it wasn't too common, a few of the girls who were purged in the past had a series of unfortunate luck following their purges. Some were ecstatic to learn about us, but the new comparisons they drew between their biology and our own drove them mad. For others, their attachment to us, combined with the inability to convince the others of our existence triggered powerful depressions, where suicides were to follow. None of us knew that was even a possibility, except for the queen, maybe. I do recall some bits and pieces of what I thought about it myself back then, and I could tell that she knew more about the psychological threats than we did."

"So, the queen might have predicted that some of the targets might not have taken it so well?"

"Don't you remember how well you took the news when you first heard my voice?"

"I wish I could forget. Sorry Lumina. I know it was a natural reaction, but I was still a dick about it then." How did I react when I first heard the voice of a space alien inside my head through telepathy? I panicked, as any normal teenager would. I instantly concluded that she wasn't real that day; that I had gone insane, while Lumina desperately tried to convince me otherwise, afraid of what would happen if I decided never to call her back, wasting her time and her only purge... I get it now. Initially, the very idea of a purge was predicted to have this effect, probably applied on a macro scale should humanity wake up to the call of The Unity. What if, instead of me who got purged that day, it was every human being on Earth purged simultaneously? Even something a tenth of that scale would change the way we think forever!

"My point is, there always seems to be a price for knowing us. For some, the price is well worth the trade. For others, not so much. The queen was afraid to start the first purge, for a variety of similar reasons pertaining to thought experiments. The first aspect of course would come from the assumption that the host target of a purge shares the knowledge they learn about us to those around them, perhaps during their purge phase or after. If enough humans believe it, it could change the fabric of all that world's religion, its scientific focus, or devolve into mass mayhem and war over those who hear our voice and those who don't believe in it. We had an advantage in stealth, while humans had their blissful ignorance. If any human who learns about the Altiri shares this information and is also successful in widely distributing the knowledge in a believable manner, then the peaceful status quo could be shattered."

"But you don't know for sure if the outcome will be more or less peaceful as a result. It doesn't have to be all bad. It wasn't a bad experience for me. If I ever hinted that it was, I never meant it."

"I know how you feel about it Reed. I'm simply trying to get you to understand the reasons why the queen hesitated on the purge for so long after the discovery of Earth."

"Right. Even if you throw out all doubts, the experiment itself is a huge deal. If successful, the visibility of your people increases, especially for the person who gets purged."

"Precisely. All of these rules and laws we have about purging human targets came into effect before the very first purge was initiated. The queen gave AG1 her approval, but under strict circumstances and supervision."

"Okay, so how did this first purge go?" It's time to get to the bottom of this mystery. I have to know how the Altiri imparted their language onto us.

"It went about as well as anyone would expect. By that I mean, nothing was too far out of the ordinary, physically speaking. Rumors had it from within that AG1 had eight members at the time, which is only two above the current minimum personnel to safely send a purge. So, they were a little messed up and drained by this purge, making the queen and all other aggressor groups realize just how much energy it takes away from us. Even so, the very first purge on humans was successful. The exact year for it occurred in 928 B.C. The woman was in her upper twenties, and her name was Peak."

I scribbled down as much as I could in the moment, especially focused on the precise details of time, dates, names, locations, and anything else I could use for additional research later on. I let Lumina continue, keeping up with her speech with my straining hands.

"Peak was born and raised at the time into a European Indian traditional tribe, ran by a private clan as most were in that region. As a result, last names were of no value to anyone in the tribe. Peak became known as Peak, since there was nothing else to document. For what it was worth, this woman's real name is used in the report, being one of the only few things declassified with the reports."

"So, in 928 B.C. a woman in an Indian tribe by the name of Peak accepted the first Altiri purge? How big was this tribe?"

"This specific tribe was strictly strung together by bloodline and marriage, and violently shielded themselves from all outsider influence, be it the presence of others or any deviation from their primary culture. We knew they studied a few interesting religious habits, but it's hard to understand the specifics. The general location of the tribe of Peak's family was due just southeast of the ancient city of Rome, though Rome had not actually been built yet."

So I have a location too now. I feel like I might have heard something before about some kind of invaders of ancient Rome and its connection with the initial English language, but there's no way I could have learned of anything too specific. The very first Altiri purge happened nearby where the city used to exist, southeast, probably in what used to be rich wild lands. "That's amazing! I bet Peak and her Altiri aggressor group were happy to meet. Even if most people freak out, I get the feeling she might not have."

"Your intuition wouldn't be far off. Peak's tribe taught their people about sacred voices of the gods. Which gods and what it all meant, we don't know. The point is, given the cultural background, I don't think Peak found the interaction too strange or scary. Of course, there was an obvious big problem shortly after the first connection occurred between the two."

"What kind of problem?"

"The language barrier."

"Right."

"Speaking specifically, we never had a reference name to our own language, because we never came across any other before. It was soon made clear between AG1 and Peak that the two psionic nodes spoke entirely different languages from each other. So even with the power of telepathy, understanding the words of each other was simply not possible. The situation was instantly chaotic, especially since this jumped the risk of Peak being unable to reconnect after the end of the first night of the purge, you know, since she couldn't learn how to do it with our words."

"I could only imagine how chaotic that would be." The same principles applied to Peak back then, only her aggressor group couldn't find any way to tell her how to manually invoke telepathy by the end of the night. To Peak, the alien language was entirely unintelligible.

"It wasn't easy, but given the strength of the connection and the cold night, Peak was entirely preoccupied by the visual exchanges she was able to capture. AG1's primary node, the one in direct communication with Peak stood in front of a mirror and relied entirely on body language and gestures to communicate with Peak. Believe it or not, Peak was intelligent enough to understand more than half of what they were telling her. If she wasn't, then there wouldn't be any more to this story today."

"Okay, so Peak must have learned enough to get by on body language alone, enough to reconnect with her aggressor group the next day. The fact that she continued to contact them proved as much."

"Peak managed to reconnect with her aggressor group hours after she woke the next day by relying on sensation and feeling to the connection the day prior. Most scryers who obtained anonymous data about the properties of this connection were very impressed."

"I'd be too," I blurted. "Even if I kept myself from freaking out, if I couldn't understand a single word you were saying on the first day that you purged me, I would have been screwed. I mean, how can a person learn even that much with body language alone?"

"Peak was both intelligent and curious. On the very second day of the reconnection, she found ways to communicate back in the same way, using her reflection in the nearby lake. Peak and her aggressor group used visual cues and indirect sign language to try understanding each other. AG1 tried to impart their language onto Peak, but it didn't do much good right away. Anyway, once Peak learned that the Altiri speaking to her were from another world, and after explaining the vastness of exo-planets, she also agreed to keep the information hidden."

"Here's what I don't understand. You said that some Altiri Scryers were learning information about this too, enough to generate this report, yet the identities were kept anonymous?"

"The queen's Royal Scryers knew the truth, but there are several other scryer groups as well, all collecting information where they are allowed to. The Royal Scryers were in agreement to share all tactical information and other details that could not be used to identify any person or group pertaining to AG1 or about Peak. This way, we would all learn more about the process of the purge while the queen kept to her strict rules of classified intelligence. Even this report I'm reading you has gone through several segments of editing, and was put together by several layers of filtered research. It's accurate, but it took a long time for this document to be released to us."

"I guess I can understand that much."

"Peak kept info about us hidden from her tribe for a number of personal reasons. We think the main had to do with her not understanding our language, as it would only be a hassle for the clan to learn anything out about this. So, she and her aggressor group passively and slowly learned from each other without any secrets being leaked. This went on for about two years."

"Two years?!" It's a really long time to keep such a secret. Yeah, it's easy given the properties of telepathy, but still... Didn't Peak ever get lonely at that time? Didn't she ever feel the need to properly understand the friendly voice in her head?

"Given that much time, Peak started picking up on some of the verbal language, as well as some of the written language as AG1 produced it. She was never fluent in English, but she began to learn basic speech aside from her native language, and even practiced drawing some of the symbols in her spare time."

"Symbols?"

"The letters that make up the English text. To everyday folk like you, writing letters is as natural as ever. But to Peak, the text was more mysterious and artistic. She thought it was just art for the longest time."

"This is amazing. Keep going." I dared not to interrupt Lumina anymore, keeping my pen to the pages while I let her go on and on about Peak's story.

"By this point, Peak picked up hundreds of Altiri words, and used them more often, since it was a more effective way to communicate between each other. She kept calling her new friend each day it was possible, slowly becoming more attached to her as time went by. It's not uncommon for these attachments to form. After all, the Altiri woman would have been like a new friend or family member for Peak. Peak's kind personality made it all the more easy to keep the connections alive over time. She knew less about the drawings of each alphabetical letter and amount of words, but her artwork started to collect to her personal belongings over time. The tribe spanned out and moved around slightly, but they didn't move very far from their corral position."

Just keep giving me more details Lumina. Eventually, this will be a wonderful story.

"It was because of her new knowledge that made it harder for Peak to hide some of the things she was learning about her aggressor group, mainly the foreign language. Her family members and friends noticed the changes in her first. Peak would make it a habit to speak in her native language as well as our language in the presence of others. It didn't take long after for some of her mysterious symbolic artwork to become more noticed, with many curious about the eye of the Altiri."

I remember that eye, the symbol which The Unity chose to be their icon. It forms a triangle, with the all-seeing-eye of clairvoyance and knowledge as its center. Even Peak was obsessed with this mark?

"Peak tried to get advice from her aggressor group as soon as she could. The attention brought onto her wasn't exactly positive. Her odd behaviors, alternate language, and artwork that fell outside the core teaching of the tribe led others to believe that she was somehow in contact with people outside the official tribe, her artwork a reflection of outside influence."

"I mean, that would technically be true, I guess... But why is that such a bad thing? You're telling me the people in her own circle of friends hated outsiders that much?"

"It was their core belief to reject all outsider influence. Those not of the tribe were not welcome, nor were their words, art, language, or any other traditions. Peak tried her best to turn it around and claim she was hearing divine voices, but the chief didn't believe her, since she kept it to herself for too long. In the end of a lot of drama, Peak failed to convince the chief of the tribe that her behavior was in any way positive or divine. Instead of banishing her from the village, they gave her an ultimatum."

I know this story is far from over, and already is this too cruel. See what I mean about Altiri being better behaved on average than humans? It's no wonder Peak's aggressor group felt like family to her.

"The choice was made simple. Peak was to cease all communication with the unknown outsiders forever, and submit herself to drawing and crafting artwork that only the chief would approve directly. Peak had no issue agreeing to the first part, since she could communicate with us in verbal silence and simply hide it from everyone. She told AG1 point blank that she would never stop calling them, because they became close friends of each other. However, the chief also called for the removal of all Peak's current artistic assets that didn't align with the current standards of their religions. So, they entered her home, collected all she had worked on, and destroyed it."

"I'm sorry, but if my family ever did that to me, I'd fucking leave them behind for good. Did her actual family try and stop them?"

"They were either too spineless to disagree, in fear of banishment, or they simply went along with the destruction, believing the external influence to be negative or dangerous."

"So this is how the first alien relations go huh? Guess I didn't see that one coming."

"The tribe knew nothing about the actual fact of our origins. Peak didn't explain it that far, and I think she knew she would have a hard time getting others to believe her, especially after this moment. Peak never agreed to having all her life's work destroyed. She had fun with those markings, but it was also partly a means for her to understand our language. About seventeen days after everything quieted down, and after many talks between her and her aggressor group, Peak decided to quickly learn to live on her own, and she walked away from her tribe forever. For Peak, the love and value she felt from her aggressor group felt more real and genuine to her than her physical, more close-contact relationships with her family and ex-friends. Peak left the tribe of her own volition, and headed north to never return home again."

So she actually did leave them... It still must have been tough.

"Lots of people in horrible family situations make all this clout about leaving to live on their own. But Reed, leaving behind the people who brought you into this world and raised you is a lot harder on the heart than you realize. Peak didn't show her emotions until after she was far away, but she cried like a baby for such a long time. Her Altiri friends were there for her, but nothing could remove the pain of such betrayal. She didn't want to be around anyone who would force her to shun the people she cared about just for acceptance."

"... Why does the story have to get so dark? I was looking forward to a happier ending."

"Real life isn't full of happy endings Reed. We trade one moment for another when we need to. AG1 and Peak had such a strong bond, they were inseparable. Peak was happy living in her tribe, until the day came where she was challenged to abandon the very people she cared about. It wasn't a good time of her life, but she made her choice for a reason. Even though she knew she would lose almost everything, she would keep the love and care they nurtured over the past two years. That in itself was more valuable to her than anything else."

"Like a group of strangers who becomes more family than biological family itself... I can see that." Heck, I've lived that to a small degree. I'm not that bad on my standing with mom and dad, but if I was forced to choose between spending the rest of my life with them or Lumina, it will have to be Lumina every single time.

"You understand what kind of pain that is yourself. After the first summer of despair, you chose to be with me, even though you knew it would bring you great pain later on. You traded your happiness for the convenience of knowing me, of spending time with me."

"I didn't trade all of it Lumina. I'm happier being with you overall than to be permanently apart. Don't ever think that the winters we spend together are not enough, because that isn't true. Every second we're together is enough for me Lumina, no matter what else you might think."

"Yeah, I know. I just want to make sure you're being happy for yourself and not just for me."

"Nothing makes me happier than to be with you Lumina. I'll keep reminding you of that until you never have doubts."

"Right... Let's get back to the story."

"Lead on."

"Peak moved northward just a bit into the wild lands, and she was entirely on her own, connected almost daily through her aggressor group. She picked up some basics in the past for certain survival skills, but Peak had to hide her practices in the past as well. Without the same pressure, Peak could learn to live and hunt on her own without impediment. Her aggressor group went to hard work teaching her how to survive. They both learned the same skills together, telepathically helping each other until Peak would have no trouble obtaining food and water even without a connection."

"Still sounds like that would take a while."

"It took a few years in fact. Peak picked a perfect spot in shallow woods, near a small source of water, and built a small cozy home for herself. She also learned how to synthesize basic alchemy ingredients into supplies of medicine for any illness. By the time Peak managed to get good enough to free up some time for herself again, she had learned many more of our words, and attempted to copy our written language into artwork. Peak wanted to go further than rebuilding what she had lost, ensuring there would be some memory of us in her world before she fades out from it."

"She wasn't ill or anything, right? I mean, she made her own medicine. That's quite a feat."

"Peak was in good physical health, but people from that era didn't live as long as they do now. As good as Peak's medicines were, it would only cover basic infections or inflammatory issues. Her supply of food wasn't entirely nutritious either, though she would soon have some help from the other nearby settlements."

"Got it." I wonder if people thought thirty years old was ancient back then. Now days, it's common to hear about women who live to be over a hundred on Earth.

"Peak didn't exactly stay in one spot, but her movements were very slow and subtle. She got much closer to the southeastern section of where ancient Rome would have been, the city still unbuilt. The settlements she stumbled into were comprised of many Greek and African tribes, most of which were friendly to outsiders. Peak didn't have too much of a warm welcome, only because she didn't have much to offer. But once she realized that the people there would sometimes trade items for food during their abundant hunts, Peak decided she would double down on her art projects, making different copies of some of her work to trade the villagers for food."

"Reminds me of Minecraft."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I'll show you that game later. Please continue."

"Like I said. With the help of her aggressor group, Peak learned how to survive each day without the support of anyone else. She had to be careful about how much interaction she had with the others. Outsider trading was starting to become a bigger business at the time. The settlements would hunt the larger and more dangerous animals, cooking in excess amounts of what they could handle. This made them more likely to trade in some of their meats to traveling merchants for any other useful items. Much of the artwork was instilled into the tools the hunters could use, even if it was just a few small containers. Peak noticed this pattern, and slowly adapted between her previous life style and that of a traveling merchant."

"She powered her way through, all on her own? I wish I could be as strong as that." I could only imagine what it must have been like in her shoes.

"Peak actually started doing well for herself, and she took the subtle warning of her aggressor group not to blindly trust anybody. Because of the rise in merchant activity, there was also the slow uptick in bandits and thievery. Peak of course managed to avoid this problem, and not staying in the same spot for too long helped her with that. Eventually, a decade went by, and her travels led her to present day Hungary."

"So she really must have gotten close to her aggressor group. They were practically sisters to each other."

"Peak eventually became so fluent in our language that it became her primary communication method. She essentially forgot the language she grew up with, and spoke to her aggressor group with more literacy than what any Altiri would have expected. Her understanding of our textual alphabet on the other hand was still a bit weak. It was still a time in her area before ink and paper, so it's not too shocking."

"This is all interesting, but how exactly did she spread this language if she was the only one speaking it?"

"Over those years, Peak worked on her perfection of our letter and alphabet system, getting about 23 out of the 26 of them. In her seventh year, she became obsessed with reproducing textual words of our language. In order to remember them, she gathered lots of stone, chiseling them down into rounded stone tablets. After she had plenty, she learned how to properly work with clay. Her artwork using dyed clay was only a byproduct of her new project. Peak used a special kind of clay, from a mixture that was rare and no longer in that area, to draw our letter system onto these stone tablets, one by one. She only had enough materials to make a few copies, but Peak was determined to get it right and back up her own work."

"That must be it then; the first written evidence of the English language started on stone tablets."

"Correct. Peak promised she would always keep her own personal copy of the tablets as sentimental value. Once they were done, her movement settled. Peak also made a larger stone tablet containing through small engraving, fifty total words. She chose the most important words to her heart, such as sister, family, happiness... The report isn't specific about which exact words are used."

I kept silent, allowing Lumina to keep going after taking breaths in between. I knew there was much more to this story, and I doubt it ends with Peak.

"There came one fateful day, a day of life and death in disguise. During a night of exploring, Peak encountered a rather large group of men. They were dressed almost like that of an Indian Tribe, but Peak saw through their disguise. The group she ran into were actually raiders. She had seen raiders and pillagers messing with others in the past, so she knew what kind of danger she was in from the moment she spotted them. Even so, she didn't panic."

"Please don't tell me she was killed by these spineless heathens."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"The raiders in that zone make a habit of locating medium-sized Indian tribes, much like the one Peak was raised in. They locate the tribe, and steal as much as they possibly can. Theft is their primary objective and means of staying alive, but they steal young women too, and kill anybody who might cross their path, if it benefits them. Peak once saw moments where lone merchants and artists were killed for their loot, but there were instances where merchants were let go and left alone too. It all boiled down to how much hospitality and entertainment Peak could provide."

"Entertainment?"

"Peak was no fighter, nor could she get anywhere by running. She knew this, and decided that attempting communication would be the best option. There were a lot of different languages, so expecting these raiders to understand her should have been impossible. However, Peak had some experience in her Altiri friends teaching her how to speak their language through visual cues. So, Peak tried to show these men her master copy of the fifty-word stone tablet, reading out each word while trying to mimic what the word might mean through visual expression. To her, it was all serious. To the raiders, it was a moment of laughter and amusement."

"Huh." So she stayed alive simply because they thought her gibberish was funny?

"Some of her body language was sent in dance, but it all looked like a harmless game of charades. The men were all in laughter, making fun of Peak's language and gestures. As a result, Peak's performance was entertaining enough, and she was unharmed."

"You mean to tell me she defended herself with comedy?"

"They were raiders! Even for a group the size of eleven people, they had been wandering around all day as they always do. The men were tired from their long journey, so any form of amusement was what they wanted in that special moment. Peak unknowingly made a fool of herself in front of them, and the sympathy she received from them sealed a friendly understanding with each other. Then, doing something raiders never do, their leader offered to trade one full set of stone tablets for a small supply of food and water. The trade wasn't exactly fair, but considering her life had already been spared, Peak didn't disappoint the offer. After making the trade, those men left, and Peak survived that night unharmed."

"That's just weird. But I guess I'm glad she didn't get killed."

"The important thing to note was the physical movement and transfer of Peak's valuable assets. This meant that another soul possessed a copy of our language in textual or symbolic form. Peak still had her own copies on her, but a few months later, she succumbed to an unknown illness her medicines would not treat, dying thereafter."

"That's still so sad. Such an amazing person deserves a better fate than dying of illness."

"Well that's where Peak's story ends. It wasn't easy to find out what happened to her stone tablets afterwards. Were they collected and redistributed, or were they lost for eternity? The aggressor group who purged Peak had no ability to invoke clairvoyance and check the last place she was, because they lost that power due to the purge. Since no other aggressor group knew anything about the identity or locations of Peak, it was impossible for them to narrow it down; they didn't even know about the tablets anyway. The second-level Scryers tried to piece information together, but it took a long time to learn what happened to the stone tablets containing our language. As far as verbal speech went, it died that day with Peak."

"Then how in the world did it spread around? Even if humans discovered the tablets, they would never know how to pronounce anything correctly."

"Peak was not the sole translator for our voice. She merely passed her baton to another. The story continues from the third purge, pertaining to a human named Eva."

"Wait. What about the second purge? And what of the queen's thoughts on experiments and transperation, and all that jazz?"

"Man you are impatient today. After the second purge, the queen analyzed the tactical and personal data of both purges, and decided that all aggressor groups have the green light to purge any human female, provided they personally seek approval from the queen after selecting a target of interest. As for transperation, the process was also authorized, considering how unpopular the purge still was at the time. Aggressor group leaders looked high and low for other woman to purge, but there were not a lot of unique individuals like Peak just walking around. The price of sending a purge was the largest deterrent. As for the second purged subject, the report doesn't mention much; only that the individual led a long and quiet life, contributing no sufficient influence to the spread of the English language, especially given a strong difference in estimated region."

"Third purge it is... You said her name was Eva?"

"Correct. Some time has passed since the first purge was launched. In 753 B.C., The City of Rome was beginning its construction from an existing central settlement. It was designed to be one of the largest and strongest city chains in the area. The city itself became partly operational in 620 B.C. Certain city states were developing at inproportionate rates, though overall, the development was smooth. The major laws for each state were derived from that state's mayor."

"Entire states?"

"City states Reed. Think of it like many small divisions of territory for a super city. Each providence would have its own different project of focus and its own laws, though there would also be a linked federal law coming from the emperor later on. Anyway, it wasn't easy to name the code of living, but most of the big laws had to do with something religious; that and respect to the emperor, at least when in certain areas or public events."

"So which city-state did this purge happen in?"

"We believe it was in Celio, though it's actually difficult to determine since the official regions were not yet defined at the time. All we know for sure was that this town's general location was a bit inwards into the regions of Rome, from the southeast to the northwest, tucked into the southeast corner. It was close enough to the boarder that lots of merchants visited, acting as an economic catalyst for growth."

"Merchants?"

"The era of merchants exploded around this time, especially around Rome, since evidence of its construction and made-to-be size screamed out tons of promise and opportunity for trade. Having a city like this meant people could live inside without having to worry about going out to hunt for their own food and water supplies. Instead, dedicated hunters would gather the necessities, bring them to the king or emperor's food division for distribution, and sell some to the merchants, who would skim a bit off the top and resell it for bigger profits. But the merchants severed another purpose too. In their travels, they freely spoke to others about what they would see. Merchants at that time acted as a kind of news service for the nearby area, so it didn't take long for all of Europe to become aware of this growing city. More merchants came by, delivering more news after they left, and the cycle continued."

"Why can't my school history lessons be this interesting?" I knew I would be ignored, for my question was only rhetorical, but I had to cite how incredible this was. Who would have guessed that the first part of alien culture would have cultivated in ancient Rome?

"Information on this town was scarce, so we refer to it today as the town of Ceil, a city within a bigger city. During the time when Ceil was still underdeveloped, the protectors, (private security and assistants for the mayor), intercepted a small document from a non-local trader. They mayor's team initially believed this document to be a secret message from a hostile spy, but they soon learned it was something else. Reproduced as an image using the standard quill and ink, the drawing depicting all of those stone tablets Peak left behind, including the master tablet of fifty words."

"Whoa!" That's one hell of a coincidence!

"Of course, identity of the third aggressor group involved in the purge, AG3, was kept from us as well. They don't come into the picture any time soon, but the reason we know this much is because other aggressor groups were watching this moment through clairvoyance. The communication ban from the queen kept the rumors of this from reaching AG3 when their time for a purge came, so they were unaware of it initially."

"I'm getting lost. Where did an ink and paper version of the stone tablets come from? Did somebody lose the tablets?"

"The tablets were never physically discovered. Apparently, a Greek scholar interested in history got somebody to draw an ink replica of these stone tablets after coming across the ones Peak left behind when she died. The scholar believed the engravings and inscriptions held some sort of deeper meaning than simple artwork, such as a custom language. However, much research didn't reveal anything useful, so he sold the ink-made copy to a trader, getting almost nothing out of the deal. This trader then sold it to another merchant, who then entered Ceil later on. With his merchandise on display for a few days, it was then when his assets were collected by patrolling authorities, mainly the inscription papers, since they appeared suspicious. Since that was all that got confiscated permanently, the merchant left without much of a fuss."

Lumina took a breath, despite only using her mind to speak; she had much more to say. "The protectors of the mayor were all men, but they were bright enough to determine that the markings must have been some kind of unused or lost language. So, the mayor hired many scribers to come and study the material."

"Scribers?"

"In that era, it was the term they used for people who studied other languages to determine what region it might be from. The mayor became a bit obsessed when the scribers initially failed to determine anything about the mysterious language, as the moment rose his curiosity. Aggressor groups took notice of this and piled on to watch, at least five or so."

"Anyway," Lumina continued, "in the span of about eight months, the scribers somehow successfully managed to translate between all fifty words and their meaning, including a close representation of vocal pronunciation of each word. They successfully discovered the equivalent of each word from their own native language, and from there, determined the alphabetic sequence used to construct those words."

"Those are some seriously smart scribers."

"Yes they were. I know you've heard me say in the past that Altiri people have a higher average intelligence level than humans, but from time to time, we run into the exception on your world. The scribers had a job to do, and they performed that job perfectly. This was essentially the reveal of an incomplete language for them, something that should have had time to develop, but didn't. As a result, the scribers got permission from the mayor with shared curiosity to expand and further develop this new language. Few had the motivation to use it as a potential cipher, since this variant of language had no traceable origin. These scribers were the ones who gave native form to this nomenclature; they named the new language after the providence of England from where they were from, calling it English. Then, they created about 1,300 new English words and a few new alphabetic letters were generated. The process took several decades."

"Several decades huh? That's really something else. How could they create 1,300 words without knowing your language though?"

"These new words they came up with had similar words to what we Altiri used, but they weren't that much the same. The consonants and vowels are what remained consistent. But as of today's English, only about twenty of those thirteen hundred words remained intact. The version of English the scribers created wasn't the same version that we spoke, though just similar enough to possibly recognize a similarity of accent. In addition, of the 1,300 words, about 57% of them were all proper nouns, given to names of people, religious aspects or gods, unnamed regions, or other unimportant items during that time. They put a lid on this project in exactly 600 B.C., but not before they started letting other locals see the language. Because of this, Ceil started to develop with this raw English as a secondary language, mostly favored by the farmers."

Lumina then delivered the end result of the scribers' efforts. "It took them about twelve years to generate a new writing style for that era, converting all of their new words into text in ink. After about thirty years, the secondary language never really took off, so the project was sealed in documentation, while the farmer community practiced with it often, trying to preserve it, for reasons we don't currently understand."

"The new language remained unused and hidden for many more centuries, all the way down to the late 4th century and early 5th century. Despite its unpopularity, the tongue of these words still gradually spread across the entire empire, even though it was still not preferred as a primary language. Even at this point, most of the farmers in many city-states were the ones practicing the language the most."

So the farmers were the ones who kept it alive? "How ironic. These days, everyone down here with a southern or farmer accent sounds like they're tripping over their own brain. Who knew it was the same type of people back then who kept the words going?"

"Since I know what you're talking about, I can tell you how much more ironic it was that the farmers back then spoke the words quite carefully and intelligently, even though most of that English variant was not of our own. Back then, they were the elegant English speakers, while others spoke it more slang than ever."

"Aren't you glad I don't speak like a hick?"

"I'd slap you one if you did. My Reed doesn't mess up the words to speak so slang." I had to hold back some laugh, since I knew she was serious just now. All this time in Georgia, I've never let my accent falter to those around me, though that's mostly thanks to Lumina herself.

"Anyway, in order to understand the state of things, we first have to fast-forward a bit to the fifth century. The Roman Empire had grown large and powerful, but also greedy and tyrannical. The effects on the citizens, especially away from the capital were minimal felt. Over time, corruption among the royal guards and tax collectors grew little by little. Suffice it to say, it became even more popular to live as a traveling merchant, one who enters and exits the boundaries of Rome around Europe. If they were only passing through, they weren't subject to most of the laws designed to drain a person's income. Since some of the mayors resisted this indirectly, the division around the city-states grew larger."

"So, Rome became divided?"

"Yes, but it was gradual and not so noticeable. All this really did was weaken the might of its empire, physically speaking. The coliseum bred many powerful warriors and brutes, but there was only focus on individual strength and glory, not a collective defense military that could cover a place the size of Rome."

"Defense against what exactly?"

"We don't know where they came from or how they got there, but around this era, lots of vicious humans started taking up residence in and around the less patrolled areas of Rome. Barbarians, Goths, and German Invaders all worked separately for the same general goal, pillaging the nation states as if they were pirates of the world. We think some members were early ancestors of the Viking family, but we can't be sure of that. All that mattered in the end, was that Rome was gradually coming under physical assault by these villains. The Emperor reacted to the threat too slowly, his priorities lost in chaos."

"You're saying a bunch of vicious heathens just swept in and started attacking an entire country?"

"They started from the north and northeast sections first. Since it was just one front, the guards repelled them easily, unaware of the warnings other merchants gave about the lack of defensive power in the south. It also didn't help that there was some amount of internal infighting among the emperor and his royal family."

"I think I see where this is going. This must be the fall of the great Roman Empire, right?"

"Slowly, but surely. These vicious attacks spread and escalated over decades of time. If we back up about sixteen years, we get to 462 A.D., the exact year recorded in which subject number three, Eva was purged."

"So that's when the third purge happened." It sounds chaotic enough. If Eva was born before the conflict, but purged during the beginning of the end of Rome, it only makes sense why there is so much to the story.

"The aggressor group who chose Eva was of course focused only on the people, mainly her, instead of the politics in and around Ceil. Though, the town of Ceil was so prosperous by comparison despite its lack of growth speed compared to other city-states. Housing options there were great, and Eva was living it up quite well in the area. So, Eva was purged at the age of twenty, turning twenty-one in 463 A.D., right as her purge process completed."

"What was Eva like as a person?"

"She wasn't shy, I can tell you that. She lived on her own for a time before she was purged. It isn't clear what happened to her family, and she stayed an only child since, happily so. Eva had a few interesting qualities about her, like the fact that she was open to so many ideas, one of which being a uniform monotheistic religion. Eva did not practice prayer publicly; she was smart enough to know not to reveal too much about herself in the open, given the required loyalty to the emperor."

Lumina went on and on about Eva, so much that I felt she must have used her ability to share memories with someone based on how detailed the report was. "Eva was into much more too. She was essentially a scholar without all the credentials or experience. One of her main fascinations was with the stars of the night sky, this being before she was purged. Eva was also a night person by default. She would sleep through the afternoon, waking at sunset to ride the night in public."

"Were shops even open at night?"

"Only specific trades, such as the farmers markets or the blacksmith who sold simple jewelry. She seemed to stop and chat with every single person who owned their own crops or cattle. Farms were really small since they were crammed inside of the same town, but there were enough of them to make profit when the merchants came to buy. Eva was very well acquainted with these men long before she was purged, and we don't have the full story as to why."

"Okay..."

"When she turned twenty, the purge she received changed her life quite intensely. Despite having a fairly good aptitude for passive psionic projection, it seemed Eva had an even higher aptitude for receiving psionic information. The purge affected her more strongly than most who experience it. She would stay at home in bed for days, coming out in intervals after having enough time for mental recovery, only to sink into powerful montrums again and again."

"For crying out loud Lumina! These purges the Altiri send might be turned up too high. It shouldn't disrupt our daily lives." I remember when I was purged. According to Lumina, I still had it easier than most others, but it was still something else. The montrum of the purge felt too amazing, too controlling and addictive to get out of.

"The power must be high in order for it to work at all. Eva suffered for it though. She constantly fought against this invisible sensation she could not see, the personality aspect of the primary node who purged her. Eva could feel the tug bringing her entire state of mind somewhere far away, and did her best to combat it. Needless to say, she was confused and frustrated when the purge finished the process, revealing the ultimate truth to her all this time."

"I'll bet. You know, the Altiri should keep in mind that it's really not fun, the conclusions we draw for ourselves in the process, trying to convince ourselves that we've not totally lost our minds given the personality changes and other weird crap that psionic signal does. I know it's not something that can be helped, but in a way, it's a strange kind of torture."

"I'm sorry Reed. I never wanted you to feel that way."

"Nah, I got what I paid for. No need to feel guilty about it now. But I'm not like other people. I feel like there are people who can't handle the purge, or won't take it too well when they find out what it's all about, people who have yet to be purged. The Altiri need to keep that in mind and have an apology prepared in advance. Just saying."

"..."

"..."

"Not that I disagree, but can I get back to Eva now?"

"Go ahead."

"You can imagine all the shock value she faced when she started communicating with the aggressor group. Since the language barrier still persisted, the situation was three times as bad. She didn't take it all too well; the aggressor group managed to communicate with her through emotional sensation better than most parings could. Eva was back to her default self in less than an hour, so she wasn't happy about the results having the immediate comparison."

"How did they convince Eva to call them back the night after?"

"They only had about eight hours or so... You can do a lot in eight hours when your back is against the wall. Despite the bumpy welcome, somehow, Eva and her node bonded by the end of the first night, again through emotion alone. The aggressor group revealed visual representations and a mirrored skit to demonstrate how she would have to call her aggressor group back later. Nobody making the report knows anything about what exactly happened, but AG3 really helped her through something tough, something unrelated to the Altiri matters. I guess that must have been when they bonded better."

"Let me guess. Perhaps with hesitation, Eva called back the night after?"

"No, she skipped night two. Eva needed time to process everything that happened, and possibly wanted to run a mental check on herself to see if she was okay. On the third night, much later, she contacted her aggressor group leader again, and from there, understood the basic picture of what was going on."

The story of what I heard wasn't nearly the same as mine, but it wasn't so different either. Being purged isn't easy. It's something I didn't think about until long after, but the moments that happened came daring close to traumatizing me, and that was before freaking out about Lumina's presence for the first time... Could you do it? If you were purged by an Altiri alien, could you handle the weirdness that would follow? Could you willingly submit to mimicking the personality of a stranger, being forced to behave their way? Could you handle the weird dreams of the Altiri and the rare hallucinations of perceptual manipulation? Could you forgive the constant forced mental obsessions with the freezing cold, the starry skies, and the eye of The Unity? Once you figure it all out from the purge completion, can you accept the awakening of a new reality? Whether you do or don't, agree or disagree, nobody can argue how intense these purges are. They really leave a heavy mark on us all, a moment we can never forget. We all had to patiently wait through new waves of insanity, and we all had to do it alone. "I hope Eva had others she could turn to, to comfort her."

"She did, but she wasn't about to just tell her buddies at the farms that she was suddenly talking to aliens. She removed any distance she had from the people in town, putting up more resistance to her aggressor group, despite calling them and agreeing to be friendly."

"Maybe she did it out of fear. I don't know." It still feels wrong. They should come up with a better way to force a human to learn telepathy than this purge cycle.

"Either way, it took a rather long time for Eva to officially warm up to her node, to AG3, and to anything pertaining to the Altiri. This initially benefited her, since she was able to get her life back on track swiftly. As the years went by, the tension between them faded away, and she became more docile."

"How much time before she started speaking English?"

"Between six and seven years. She kept the language to herself for most of that time, but once Eva mastered her understanding of our language, might I say ten times better than Peak ever had, she became very comfortable using that language anywhere around. She knew nobody would understand the altered language, but she would sometimes make jokes at others this way, to avoid her intensions being understood."

"What a rebel."

"One fateful day, Eva visited her many friends, who by then expanded the conditions of their farms, while others converted into large stables for renting horses. That's when she overheard two of them talking to each other in the unofficial English variant developed long ago from Peak's stone tablets and the 1,300 new words processed."

"I see."

"Remember when I said that despite the severe differences in pronunciation, our version of English and the first human variant could at least be recognized as congruent?"

"I suppose." Not sure how I could remember such a tiny detail.

"Like I said, the version of English which they spoke in front of Eva had a similar pattern of consonants and vowels, so similar that Eva could actually make out some of what they were saying. When she realized as much, she tried talking to them using the same language, but used our variant instead of theirs. She spoke English so properly and refined, and it rolled off the tongue easier by comparison. Those guys were noticeably impressed, but just as well surprised. To their knowledge, they had no idea Eva spoke the lost language, let alone with a richer accent."

"Oh boy."

"That's right. Eva noticed it as well. Given the initial language barrier, she eventually learned how to speak our version of English, which to her at the time was nothing more than ancient alien language. So, her thoughts were pondering how in the world our alien language was being spoken by other humans who were not in direct contact with us. She freaked out a bit, but who wouldn't?"

"That sounds like it might be enough to blow the Altiri secret right out of the water!"

"It wasn't as simple as that. Eva's first priority then was to interrogate AG3 about how other humans knew their language. They were shocked too, but they still came up with the only possible conclusion; the words transmitted from Peak would have been the only source on Earth. In their translation, it simply became a reveal to Eva that she wasn't the very first person to be purged by Altiri aliens. She didn't know that before the moment though."

"I can see this escalating fast. Did the farmers ever catch on that she was into some weird stuff?"

"They pressured her on the subject, but since the truth would be less believable than the lie, she feigned innocence. Eva couldn't explain how she learned this language. She just picked it up somehow. This however was also highly suspicious and amazing to her friends at the same time. Look at it this way. The mayor who sealed the initial English text documents and information pertaining to the stone tablets filed those documents in such a way where they would always be accessible, but set with low importance as to not draw random attention. Centuries passed, so the mayor was a different mayor of Ceil now. As soon as the others got word, Eva became a little popular in her own town for the unofficial language she learned on her own."

"Why would her friends care enough to share that detail with the world?"

"They didn't really care about the aspects of the mystery or its story. The fact is, a story like this creates a lot of buzz around the city-states. Rumors start to develop at random, and theories fly around. If anything becomes talk of the town, it then becomes discount season."

"Huh?"

"You heard me. Merchants that travel around amass more business whenever their customers know there is an interesting bit of news or a new story to tell. The trick works both ways too. Those very same farmers and localized merchants can sell their assets at a higher price if they sweeten the deal with information, no matter how useless. People were bored and many were looking for escape from their realities, now more than ever since Rome was slowly being attacked from the north. It was stress on their minds, and any hot rumor made the entire market hotter. Merchants selling items also bought and paid for some of the information, so that they may travel and sell that info back to other townsfolk in other areas who knew nothing of the story, if they were interested. For a while, it created a hysteria of false rumors."

"What a weird trade."

"It's simply what they did. Anyway, you can imagine from this process how quick Eva became news, particularly to the interest of the current mayor of Ceil. It turns out, the mayor had already been in the process of investigating this unofficial language that many farmer folk were speaking, as it spread all throughout Rome. Once again, it was initially looked as a potential cipher language to hide criminal activity, though there was no evidence. The point is, this mayor had those ancient documents open sitting on his table when he heard about Eva speaking some strange version of English from friend to friend."

"She got the attention of the mayor just for saying something?"

"The mayor called her into his office, and had a long discussion about where Eva learned to speak the way she did. Eva was under pressure, so she didn't hide how well she spoke the proper version of English from anybody. She only hid the fact that she learned it from us telepathic beings. Eva got off the hook by explaining that she picked up bits and pieces of the language from all over Rome, while fixing up a personal accent since the old version was still unpopular and outdated, which it was. It was a stretch to suggest any proportion above three percent knew about this. Still, she was clear of any suspicion of treason, but then was prompted another offer."

"I don't get the fascination about it though. If they don't know the truth about Eva, why would the mayor take such an interest?"

"Because the mayor had studied the documents well. There were only 1,300 words in his documentation, though Eva managed to let slip dozens of more phrases that were totally alien to them, unintentionally proving that she knew the lost language a lot more than anyone else did. There was another opportunity for this moment as well. The mayor decided it would be a good idea to enlist Eva's help in officially developing this language into a proper legal form, so that English could become a legal second language to the entire area of Rome."

"Why though?"

"For one, a nation that knows more than one language attracts intelligent scholars from outside. It gives off the appearance of elegance as a place of fine learning. Despite the state Rome was in, attracting outsiders to live there was always a side-priority for any in charge. There was another reason too. Since the mayor would be working on the project himself, he would stand to gain the glory, title, and attention of developing a supposed lost language. It would have been seen as a serious accomplishment for him, one that would bestow several accolades."

"Always thinking about himself I see."

"He needed Eva's voice to develop the project forward, since she was the only one who understood proper pronunciation and all the English words we could entrust her with. The proposition was so interesting for us, news made it to our queen in minutes. AG3 didn't pressure Eva to do anything she didn't want to, despite telling her that the queen would have preferred Eva agrees to share the language. It was the first time the queen took immediate and direct active interest in an aggressor group during connection phase. Needless to say, Eva agreed to be the translator. Having access to her own Altiri friends to teach her anything in the moment made the mission a cakewalk."

"But what if she didn't want to be bothered with all that? The mayor is the one who gets all the glory, right?"

"Eva would have been credited too, but the mayor sweetened the offer with money and vouchers. In time, it would have made her rich."

"Oh..."

"Hah! I see it now. You were so quick to call the mayor selfish in this situation, but would you agree too if you were offered a heavy sum of money?"

"Why must you mock me Lumina? Look. If I can get paid handsomely to just sit there and say a bunch of words, I'd rather have that job than anything else. Of course Eva agreed; I would have too."

"You're not upset about not getting the same allocates as the person scribing the information, the honor and glory of the English language mainly credited to another?"

"Fuck that! I'll just take the money and live the good life. I don't care if someone looks at me like a sellout for it. Living life well is the best way to live after all. Even if money is what makes that happen down here, I can see why Eva agreed to help."

"If you say so... As I was saying, Eva agreed to help with this project. The mayor hired a second and third author for support, all to vocalize the language, write a book of translation for the assistance in learning pronunciation, and published more books pertaining to the English language itself. The process took several years, and Eva shared with everyone just about every single word we knew, at least where it held any relevance anyway. Terms like psionic telepathy were kept off the books, though the phrase telepathy by itself came up; stuff like that. You have any idea how immense the full language was? They wrote dictionaries about it, references and phrases, even rehearsal lessons. The plan was to publish them all and send them out into the world."

"How did that go?"

"Progress on that was very slow for the first couple of years after. Even so, many of these books were slowly traded around using the merchant guilds. Some of these texts even made it far out of the city, but it wasn't exactly a popular item. People weren't going to line up left and right to buy something they don't understand immediately. As for the mayor, he just waited and waited for the language to become popular enough for him to be approached. He did signature the books after all."

"What about Eva?"

"She got back to her old life, but it wasn't long before the attacks on Rome devolved the entire nation state into utter chaos. The army tried fighting them off, but they were outnumbered and ill-prepared, especially when the attacks started coming from all sides, like within the south."

"Well, shit."

"Sixteen years after Eva was purged, the Germanic Invaders by this point were a common pestilence and a dominant force in just about every corner of the map. These men were not denied anything in particular; they simply loved violence and brutality. They were the heathens of all heathens in this era of Europe, and greedy, nobody could stop them. The people in Ceil were safe for the moment, since the enemy had not made it that far inland from the south yet, and there was still plenty of opportunity to evacuate."

"Did everyone like Eva and the mayor make it out okay?"

"I'm afraid not. In 479 A.D., nearing the end of their winter, Eva went silent with her aggressor group for seventeen consecutive days. Later, the mayor himself found the girl's dead body just near the gates of the southern border, while the town in that area had already been raided and burnt to the ground for loot."

"That's horrible!"

"We don't know what Eva was doing in that area at the time or why she was out there. The emergency Scryer team had authorization to check up on Eva's exact location, which through clairvoyance is how they learned of her death. The cause of death appeared to be acute starvation. She ran into some of the invaders or raiders who took what little food and supplies she had on her, and she sadly starved to death."

"I feel for her... Why in the hell is school not teaching us stuff like this?"

"Because nobody else on Earth has this much insight into what happened. We have the reports from Altiri Scryers who watched over many humans in this era using our clairvoyant powers, and what was learned from the purge. Once the final mayor of Rome was annihilated, the entire empire quickly fell apart. The invaders knew Rome was done for, and a full blackout of information occurred, following the burning of libraries and protected documents. A small armed force to the north managed to survive, but they were given the ultimatum to surrender and submit themselves as total slaves, or die by blade. The town of Ceil was given the same options too, as its infrastructure was not totally destroyed like other places. Most in the north chose to fight, while most in Ceil, not being fighters, chose to submit."

"I had no idea it was that brutal."

"It was. Given the state Ceil was in, the merchants banded together to secretly sneak out and recover as many important documents as possible, getting them as far away from Rome as possible, while also learning the language verbally in order to commit some of the information to memory. It wasn't enough to spread the English Language in effect, but it did manage to protect those inscriptions from the Barbarians who wanted all the previous culture destroyed."

"Then what happened?" My hand was about to fall off from how much technical dates and locations I kept up with, but I wasn't done with this until it was over.

"Many of the German Invaders in Ceil wanted to take and dispose of the artwork in the vaults, including written text. Some of the art was sold away, while some of it was destroyed. When they came across the texts pertaining to the new and refined English Language, they decided not to destroy the material, but rather to embrace and learn it. Not every single one of them wanted to see total destruction of the Roman culture. Some of the previous villagers and farmers tried buying some of the materials off them, but the farmer who knew Eva most, begged and pleaded to have remaining fragments of the vocal translator text Eva helped create. The man got his wish after ridicule, and he held the book on his person at all times afterwards, devoting the rest of his life to spread this language far and wide, though the Germans who also had copies appreciated the language in their own manner, contributing further to the spread... As it turned out, that farmer's best friend long past, used to be Eva's father. It was a truth he kept to himself, and a reason why they were so friendly towards Eva from the beginning. The man held onto the only remaining evidence of Eva's livelihood, defending the book with his very own life."

At last, I was speechless, tears waving in my eyes. I couldn't fathom the ordeal Eva must have been put through, attacked and killed, while the best friend of her father could do nothing but remember her in the chaos of a war nobody asked for. Like always, when immersed into a story, I began imagining myself as the characters Lumina described. Bit by bit, my heart started breaking in vain hopes I could somehow help them.

"Sorry Reed. Even with how this is worded, most of this was apparently transcribed from the very aggressor group who purged Eva, one and the same. It was all personal for them, you know?"

"... Yeah." I know now how impolite I was moments ago, so impatient and excited to learn the truth about the English Language. Never did I guess it would involve so much sadness and death, the loss of people so important to all of us. Somehow, I don't think Lumina realized it either, not until she continued reading everything. It's the reason her speech slowed down closer towards the end little by little. Everyone could feel that life leave the world from here, no matter when it happened.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"I should be asking you the same... Let's just take a few seconds to respect the lives we lost that day."

"Take all the time you need."

I took Lumina up on that offer, turning a few seconds of silence into more than a full minute, as I tried to imagine Eva as she was, to honor and remember her, her and everyone else who ever died without deserving to. I forgot how terrible of a place this world was sometimes. "So, getting back into it all, is that how the English Language spread?"

"It's really how it started. Again, not all areas of Rome were destroyed, but as far as the empire and nation state was concerned, they were done for good. The scavenging and movements went on for a while, and by the end of the fifth century, many of these invaders went to pillage another area, which would have been the area of Britain at the time. Most of the German invaders who entered Britain in the attacks by that time picked up on the language since they spent so much time in Rome. It's actually around this point where we lose track of the language tracing a bit. Most of the aggressor groups were more interested in the general devastation going on in the world."

"So then, it spread over to Britain, and from there..."

"From there, the English Language becomes more traceable through human activities and studies of the past. Most of what is taught about the subject is accurate, just not the initial origins of the language and its movements. We speculate that their interest in Britain and the English Providence might have been influenced by the very name of the English Language itself, curiosity leading them to what they believed as another great empire, but again, we can't prove this."

"Okay, so after that moment, the English Language was no longer influenced by the Altiri, right?"

"Many who tried replicating variants of the English Language changed the phrasing a bit, while some of their words not matching anything we knew entered the same word system. It was a gradual and long process, but I don't know why you would think our involvement was ever over at that point."

"Huh?"

"Eva was only part of the third purge Reed. There were twenty-three total purges in random parts of the world before you became the twenty-forth. In all those centuries of human activity, our purges now and then heavily influenced and cultivated the English Language, steering it into what it is today. After the fifth purge, aggressor groups started blacklisting any targets who didn't speak English natively. From there, the rest is history."

"History huh...?" I held up my notebook full of scribbled writing, certain there was enough reference material in here to do what I planned later. Though I hesitated, asking myself whether this was really the right call to make. I went into this with a goal, but all my thoughts and sadness for Eva and the others lingered, clouding my motivations from me.

"Yeah... That's all of it. There isn't anything else to tell you. This is the history of the English Language, or rather the language of our telepathy. The report has nothing left to mention either." I could hear the sorrow in her voice too. Even though Lumina and Eva never knew each other, even she must understand what kind of life she lived.

I don't think Eva ever regretted the day she was purged or the outcome of it all. She got to make some additional friends, even though she couldn't tell anybody else about them. After enough time, I doubt she saw that part of her life as some kind of mistake for anybody. There's a reason why most purges end with a strong bond between the two nodes. If an Altiri person decided they were going to purge you, then that alone shows how much they care, how much love they feel for you.

"Are you okay?"

Throughout the ending of the story, I had been sitting at my home computer desk, with everything powered off, immersed in her story so much that I never fully registered where I was until now. Even though all I felt was real and important to me, I still had to be sure if it was real to the world. "Yeah, I'm good... Lumina? There's something I need to look into for an hour. Please put the connection into phase for me."

"What are you going to do?"

"When I finish, I'll tell you about it."

"Oh, no you don't! No secrets from me. I don't know what's on your mind right now, but I'm staying right here until you tell me what's going on."

I swear, she really is stubborn sometimes. "Fine." I calmly changed my plan while stacking the notebook right in front of me, waiting for my laptop to power on. "Don't say I didn't warn you though. You're not going to be happy to see what I'm about to look up... But I have to know Lumina. I have to know once and for all which truth is the real truth." After all this time, after all these years, am I really insane? Is Lumina just a figment of my imagination, sent to me so that I wouldn't have to feel alone? If she is fake, then wouldn't I be fake too? I told myself over and over that Lumina and the Altiri were real, and experienced moments of total certainty on that assumption; but there was never total proof.

"What are you talking about?"

I was already at the web browser by the time I answered her, though I beat around the bush until I could be sure, for as long as I could anyway. "Listen Lumina. At first, I was only interested in the story for factual data. I only cared about the language and its movements, the era and everything else, and I had a reason for taking these notes too. I really am sorry about what happened to Peak and to Eva, and to anyone else in this world who suffered as they did. I do care about what happened back then; you have to believe me on that."

"Reed?"

As I began opening many new tab links at once following my search engine request, Lumina got to read the same words on screen that I was reading. After skimming through initial data, it didn't take long for Lumina to catch on. "What is this? Are you..." Lumina gasped when she thought she understood. "Are you comparing your notes to see if this really happened?"

"I won't deny it."

As expected, following two seconds of scary silence, Lumina lost her temper on me pretty quickly. "You're not going to find any data to what we have through their database. Is this why you wanted to know all along, just so that you could test if I exist?"

"I told you before; that's not all I was thinking about. Don't you dare insinuate that I didn't prioritize anyone else. I know damn well this is messing with you right now. It's messing with my head too."

"All this time... I thought you told me you believed I exist, from way back when, that you didn't need any more hard evidence."

"It's true you know. I really don't require that hard evidence to believe you are real. It's entirely possible that my own search doesn't reveal anything conclusive about this, and if that's the case, I'll accept it. But Lumina, all this time, my belief in you and the Altiri has been entirely based on faith alone. I don't need evidence that you exist... But if there is evidence out there somewhere, I still want to see it."

"But what if—"

"What if what? What if I find out some alternate truth? What if I find some discrepancies between your story and well-documented human evidence of activity in and around ancient Rome? Lumina, if I come across something that directly opposes all the things you've been telling me, then I think you'll have some explaining to do."

"I'm not worried about that!"

I froze from my typing momentarily, curious to what she meant. "Then what?"

"I just thought... I thought after all this time, you didn't have any doubts about me anymore. The fact that you still do, it..." Lumina wasn't sure what she wanted to say, but her heart spoke for her, seeping through the connection into my own mind. For some reason, the emotional pain inside her chest was something I felt too, a variant of heartbreak I may never make up for. I knew she would be upset; I even knew why. Right or wrong on my part, this was a big breach of trust.

"I've always had my doubts Lumina. All I did was repress them as much as possible, trying not to think about it since it would never do me any good. I also told myself, that if the opportunity to prove this once and for all ever came up, I'd have no choice but to seize it. I have to know how crazy I am Lumina."

"You're not crazy!"

"We'll have to see about that. Even if what I learn suggests I should be in a psyche ward, I'm not ever going to stop loving you... That's part of the problem, you know? How can a person be in love with part of their own imagination? How can I be in love with a girl that might not even exist? It bothers me, on the back of my mind, as I have to push the thought away every now and then. And yes, I am most sorry for doubting you Lumina. I wasn't able to help it after all." Of course, this was part of the reason why I kept it from her too. If Lumina was onto my plan prior to telling the story, and she were a subconscious fragment of me, she would have gone out of her way to be as inspecific about these tactical details as possible, to avoid risking the screw up.

Lumina exhaled calmly, though stress wrapped around her entire body in the pursuing silence. "Fine... I'll phase out for one hour. After that, I'll phase the connection back in, and you can tell me what the truth is then."

"There's no need to get all—" Before I could even finish that statement, I felt the connection modulate and change, being phased out. Lumina ignored what I was going to say, proving to me she was still upset.

I was too committed to this now to stop; I have to know the truth about all of this. Are the Altiri real, or are they something I made up? If Lumina is real, then there would be something between the notes I took and the online articles that matched up.

After spending so long, I wasn't able to find any mention of the English Language being traceable before the fifth century. Even the online database articles couldn't be too sure.

However, after reading enough of the material, I found some matching information after all, little things that linked up to what she told me, insignificant on their own, but incredible when put together. The puzzle pieces matched the board of history after all! The timing of it all was only one factor. Lumina mentioned that Rome was gradually attacked by outside invaders between the late fourth century and the early fifth century. According to the online database here, those relative timings match up.

Point number two; relative locations. It was mentioned online that the northern sections of Rome were hit harder than the south, mainly because Rome had pretty good border controls and physical defenses for their walls. In Lumina's story, this matched up as well. The south wasn't invaded until much later, and Rome was invaded on all sides near the end.

Point number three, the later invasion of Britain. This too was mentioned in the online articles, about her Germanic Invaders were using the language most when traveling from the recently plundered Roman Empire to Britain, invading their lands next.

Then there is match number four, the most significant one of them all. Lumina happened to give an exact date for the initial construction of Rome; 753 B.C. According to the article, the Roman Empire existed between 753 B.C. and 509 B.C. in its early monarch form, stemming from a collection of tiny settlements. She might not have known much about the monarch system at the end, but to state that it all started in the exact same year of 753 B.C.? That can't be some crazy coincidence; it's too specific for anyone's imagination, too specific for randomness combined with everything else. I knew nothing about this before going into it, and I sure as hell didn't consider that year significant for any reason before Lumina told me the story...

I felt so much at once, it was suddenly hard to think. Mostly, I was happy enough to smirk! This right here proves all of it! The plan worked after all. Lumina taught me something that would have been physically impossible for me to learn without initial reference material, something that turned out to be scary accurate. I don't care how crazy anyone thinks I am; you can't learn real life raw information from out of nowhere, or from some form of imaginary hallucination. After all this time, I can finally stop having any doubts. Lumina is real! The Altiri are all real! Everything I've ever experienced in my life actually happened to me, and that means Lumina's story about the English Language and Eva were all real too... "Lumina!"

I snapped out of the victory trance I pushed myself into, and desperately tried calling her back, pulling the connection out of phase, which still wasn't easy for me to do. Without messing it up, I still managed to get her back, and I had so much to apologize for.

"I see you're finished double checking my own existence."

"I'm so sorry Lumina. I had no choice given my circumstances."

"That's hard to believe."

"What if it were you in my shoes huh? What if the only concrete chance to see the truth was put into your lap? You're saying you would ignore it at the possibility you might have been insane all along?"

"That's not the point. What we feel for each other shouldn't be so fragile that either scenario would break it apart."

"You really don't listen to me sometimes."

"Excuse me?"

"I told you before Lumina. If I had come to the conclusion that I was somehow insane, and that you weren't real, I'd still be madly in love with you anyway. That isn't something I can ever undo, nor would I want to."

"S— so you would have just been fine acknowledging you were insane and gone with it?"

"Yeah, for better or worse Lumina. I do love you, forever and ever. I wasn't lying back then when I confessed to you... But luckily, we don't have to worry about it anymore. Your data actually matched!"

"Wait, it did?"

"Why is that surprising to you?"

"I mean, I know I was right, but I didn't think you would be able to prove it using your weird method."

"You mentioned an exact date about the start of Rome, as a kingdom. The date from your story and the online article matched, down the exact year! Nothing fake like a hallucination would have been able to teach me that, something I couldn't have possibly known otherwise. You passed Lumina. You pass as a real, existing person."

"Yeah, I knew that all along... When will you just listen to me when I tell you I'm always right?"

"Because it's more fun if challenge you from time to time."

"I didn't find it fun this time."

"I was only joking Lumina. Really though, I am sorry. Look at it this way. From now on, you can know that I'll always believe you exist, based on faith and hard evidence that can never be lost."

"You won't doubt me ever again? How would you feel if I doubted your very existence all the time?"

"Okay, enough nightmare fuel for a day." I knew she was right, and I didn't even want to consider it, because I knew how horrible that would feel if it ever played out that way. "Are we cool still?"

"I don't know..."

Crap! She's pushing her fingers together while making that face, teasing her own forgiveness by dangling my bad behavior in front of me. There's only one thing to do then. "What's say I make it up to you somehow?"

"You'll make it up, really? As in, you'll do anything I ask?"

"Why do I get the sense you want to torture me when you say that?"

Lumina laughed instinctively, trying too late to hide it from us. "Don't worry Reed. I won't tease you around for the whole rest of your life, just most of it."

"Thanks."

"Seriously though, to make it up to me, you'll have to watch another romantic movie with me... And I want Longhorn too!"

"Longhorn again? Girl, you are stretching my allowance... And I don't even get allowance anymore."

"But you save it up like crazy, so you can afford a little Longhorn and some movie time."

"I've never met someone who loves feeling the taste of food they're not physically eating."

"And I've never met anyone who pinches pennies as often as you do. You should indulge yourself a little, so long as you bring me with at the same time."

"Ah, right... Who's the selfish one here?"

"What's it going to be huh?"

"Fine. We'll get ourselves the famous Parmesan Crusted Chicken, and we'll do it tonight before they close."

"Yeees!" Lumina completely turned her mood around from the good news.

I found it mildly funny, but certainly not surprising. That food from Longhorn really is amazing! Plus, it's literally one of the only items on any menu of the entire planet that I and Lumina both enjoy simultaneously. "Yeah, tonight's a good night to celebrate, I think."

Lumina replied with, "I celebrate any day that I'm with you."

"Awh come on! You stole my thunder! I'm supposed to be the one wowing you."

"Then you'll have to step up your game and do better."

"Yeah you're one to talk."

"What was that?"

I only meant to mutter just then, but I had no leg to stand on anymore. Lumina wanted to gloat about being right, and she earned it today. "You're always going on about how I'm so romantic and poetic."

"Don't make me sound like a cliché high school chick."

"Then by all means, keep trying to sound like me. Really shows some originality."

"Wasn't I the one who taught you how to talk to women?"

"Oh shut up."

"Don't tell me to shut up, you shut up! ..."

"..."

"This the part where we make out?"

"You watch too many rom-coms!" It was too hard for me to stifle some laughter, but whatever this tiny argument was felt more fun to have than anything else today.

"Me? You're the one who picks the movies more than half the time. Oh! What a sick burn! I go girl!"

"Wow... I'm so happy I married you." I couldn't hold back my smile or excitement any longer. This felt right. Lumina giving me the chance to make up was all I needed to become a better version of myself.

"Well, that's... I'm happy I married you too."

"Don't tell me you're blushing right now?"

"Altiri women don't blush you idiot."

"If you say so."

"Keep it up, and I'll require three more Longhorn dinners instead of one."

"... I love you too Lumina."

"There. That's more like it."