Inner Sanctum Exterior | 2:54 PM | Second Day

"It's revolting. Just absolute barbarity."

"We heard you the first two times, Kam," Seth said flatly.

Blop, blop. Gods, that sound was getting annoying.

We were out in the garden now; the ten of us, plus Mehit, between the overhung area with the statue of Phui and the large pond behind the building, underneath one of the only trees in the bioenclosure. What had been meant to be a quick outdoor lunch before being ushered into the conference hall had instead become a more protracted period of sitting around as the event had been pushed back yet again as a result of what had just happened. As I understood it, the current target was 3:15, but even that seemed tenuous to me.

A wooden table had been set up with a variety of easy-to-eat foodstuffs for self serving - sandwiches, leaf rolls, fruit salad, some grilled meat. I'd piled some of the more indulgent items on my plate and spiced it heavily. (I would like to say this was because I needed the stress relief, but in truth I just had a really terrible diet.) There were chairs, but not enough, so some of the class was sitting on the steps leading into the patio. Well, except for Ptolema, who was perched on the grass. Apparently she didn't care if it messed up her clothes.

Yantho was here, too, though he wasn't really doing much. It had turned out that Sacnicte's request had been sort of redundant. The inner circle didn't seem to have given him any instructions beyond placing the food, so now he was just sitting around with the rest of us, waiting for news to come.

"I'm just astounded at the sheer degree of audacious disregard for human life," she went on, gesturing a fork in air as she spoke. "Just open psychopathy. It's on an entirely different level than any of their past stunts. It's a miracle that only 23 people died."

"Well... They did rather have a lot of arcanists present..." Theodoros commented, in between bites of his sandwich.

"It's lucky that it hit one of the old towers," I chimed in. "It looked much worse when we saw it happen. If it had been a modern building with actual people in, hundreds could've been crushed."

Blop, blop.

"I just can't conceive of what they could possibly hope to accomplish," Kam continued. "Do they think an act of mass murder at the forefront of the greatest celebration of peace in the world will sway anyone to their side, inspire any response from the average person but disgust?"

"I doubt their intent was to sway the average person," Bardiya said from his spot by the steps, his gaze leveled at the horizon. "The Greyflags realize they won't ever appeal to moderates, or even to most sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. Rather, they want to inspire the grassroots of their organization and potentially recruit more like-minded people."

"Do we know it was them?" Seth asked, from his spot next to Theo.

Kamrusepa snorted. "Who else could it have possibly been? None of the other leftover groups are this violent. Even the Oathbreakers have the basic human decency to not go after civilian targets."

"Partially civilian, in this case," Bardiya commented. "I would imagine their primarily targets were the military officials-- The Turtan overseeing Asharom and Felazzar was on that float. Zah-Eil as a secondary goal, most likely."

"You, uh, said he was hospitalized, right?" Ptolema asked Seth.

"Yep," he said. "That's what the transmissions they were sending out when the link came back said. Whole torso was crushed, and pretty badly burned, too. Not clear if he'll make it."

"Geez," she said. "Never thought I'd feel sorry for the guy."

"It's all so awful..." Ophelia said, looking dejected. "I hope no one we knew was hurt..."

"I mean, it's not very likely," I said. "Old Yru has a metropolitan population of nearly thirty million. Even if we're just talking about the inner city, where it's more like eight, that's still only a chance of about one in three hundred and forty-seven thousand--"

"I'm not sure that's really what she's looking for right now, Su," Seth said, gently but firmly.

"Oh," I said. "Uh, sorry."

"It's a disgrace that the censors weren't able to prevent the attack, in my opinion," Mehit said, from the table where she was sitting with her daughter. (Said daughter was, as usual, staring at her logic engine without any interest in the conversation surrounding her.) Her tone was a little awkward and rigid - a consequence of participating in a conversation with much younger people, most likely - but she hadn't been able to avoid being pulled in. "I'd been planning for Lili and I to go myself if it hadn't been for all this. To think that we could have been the ones crushed under that thing is horrifying. If they couldn't be completely confident in securing the parade route, they ought to have never held it to begin with."

"I heard some stuff about the whole organizational process being kinda troubled," Seth said. He reached to his side for his moment, taking a drink of water. "Actually, wasn't it you who told me that, Theo?"

"Uh? Oh, er, yes," the shorter boy affirmed, nodding. "There was some talk about it in the newsheets a few weeks ago. Apparently setting up the much longer route for this year cost most then the city council had ever anticipated, so they had to keep going back to the Administrators to ask for more resources. Lots of roads not fit for purpose, prefectural legislature that had to be worked around..."

"What a fucking mess," Seth said, shaking his head. He hesitated, looking to Mehit as he realized he'd cursed. "Uh, sorry, ma'am."

"It's quite alright," she said stiffly. "It's all very stressful to think about, to be certain."

Blop, blop, it continued. My eyes kept wandering back over to the pond.

"Frankly, as much as I'm horrified about the people who died," Kam cut in again, "I almost feel worse for the untold thousands of individuals all across the Mimikos - and here in the Atelikos and the Diakos, even - who will have all their hard work go to waste, now that this has ruined the celebration. Not to even speak of the millions of people who were looking forward to it, who might've had their business connected to the event, who could have been hoping to use the event to propose--"

"Seriously, Kam, we do get it," Seth said. "No one's happy about it or defending the bombers, okay? You can get out of your soapbox tone."

"Soapbox tone--" She cut off her own raised voice abruptly, closing her eyes and shaking her head sharply. "I'm not in a 'soapbox tone', Seth. It's a genuine outrage. I am outraged."

"Right," he said, tiredly. "Sorry."

"I wonder of the long-term consequences of this," Bardiya said, his tone grave. "No doubt it will embolden the extreme arm of the revolutionaries to a degree they have not been in years, especially if no clear culprit is apprehended quickly. As much as it is, as Kamrusepa pointed out, harmful to the cause in some respects, there is great power in showing that no circumstance is completely safe, and there are yet those who answer grand displays of whitewashing from the Administrators with force."

Kamrusepa glared. "You almost sound sympathetic, Bardiya."

"Not in the least," he said sadly. "In fact, I largely agree with you. The event is a tragic way for tensions to have boiled back to the surface, with several utterly undeserving victims. What makes it worse is that it could have easily been avoided with better management of the situation by political actors."

She scoffed. "Of course, you would find a way to blame even this on the government, instead of the literal murderers who just did it."

Oh, gods, I thought, my guts recoiling. Please don't happen again. I don't have the stamina.

"You misunderstand me," Bardiya said, shaking his head. "I mean better management on all sides. And I do not mean to suggest that the perpetrators do not bear the brunt of moral responsibility, or to downplay their agency in committing this act." He looked downwards. "But no man is an island, and all political action - even violent action - is inseparable from the choices which preceded it, choices made by those with power. To not discuss the wider social forces at work at a time like this and instead fixate upon the direct culprits is to risk learning nothing."

Blop, blop.

It didn't look like Kamrusepa had expected Bardiya to concede as much as he had, because she seemed a little thrown off, taking a second to process the argument instead of having a snappy comeback. "Be that as it may," she eventually said. "It's quick a tactless way to redirect the topic when the bodies are still warm, if I may be quite frank."

Argumentum ad personam, I thought, but didn't say anything.

Bardiya shrugged. "My intent is not to disrespect the dead, and I do hope the culprits receive justice. Indeed, I confess to being quite angry with them myself, as I anticipate there are many reactionary forces in our society that will see this as an opportunity to be seized."

"God, you're right," Seth said. "I wouldn't be surprised if we end up half way to martial law after something like this."

"I would expect any changes to be subtler than that," Bardiya said grimly. "Many are eager to crush what small gains were made during the Summer Compromise, no doubt. And the more the concept of the revolution is poisoned in the public consciousness, the easier that will be to accomplish." He sighed. "But as Kamrusepa said, perhaps such speculation is inappropriate so soon after the fact."

"Well, it's not as if I want a bunch of Iconists to get in power and piss in the well," Kam said, frowning. "That's why I hope it's all dealt with swiftly. Make an example of them."

Bardiya moved his head in a subtle way that made it hard to tell if he was nodding or shaking it, saying nothing.

"Uh, Bard," Ptolema said, twisting her lip into an awkward expression. "This is probably a dumb question, but... You like, uh... You still have some friends in some of the leftover groups, right? That you keep in contact with?"

"None of the violent ones, if that's what you mean to suggest," he said. "But yes, I keep my ear to the ground."

"Did'ya hear anything about this? Uh, not directly, I mean," she said, holding up a hand as she quickly corrected herself. "But like... Y'know, the mood of people, or the parade..."

He was silent for a moment, thoughtful. "There was definitely a negative sentiment towards the entire enterprise from the beginning. A great deal of frustration in regard to the growing hypocrisy of the Old Yru Convention, and their increasing attempts to shift the broader rhetoric away from any of the issues that instigated the crisis at Ikkaryon," he explained. "But if you're asking if there were any suggestions of potential terrorism, than no. There has been talk of a coordinated disruption to the parade in multiple cities, but nothing like this."

"Huh," she said. "Well, I guess that doesn't really mean anything..."

"What are you trying to get at, Ptolema?" I asked, furrowing my brow.

Blop, blop.

She rubbed the side of her neck, looking embarrassed. "Well, it'll make me sound kinda stupid, but, y'know... Whenever something like this happens, people always say stuff like, 'well, what if it was faked by the government!' And Bard said that thing about how a bunch of people in the Grand Alliance would really want an excuse to bring back Meritism everywhere again - my dad talks about that all the time, too - so... I dunno..."

"C'mon, Ema," Seth said crossing his arms and giving a flat smile. "Don't turn into some kinda conspiracy theorist."

"I'm not being a conspiracy theorist! Geez." She huffed, taking a bite out of a piece of bread. "It just seems-- Well, it seems weird that they'd be able to do something like that, right at the front of the parade, with arcanists all over the place."

"I'm sure there's a million things we don't know about the nuances of the situation that made it possible, Ptolema," Kamrusepa said, her tone somewhat condescending.

"I guess," she replied, frowning.

"It... Makes me feel tense... Being cut off from civilization at a time like this," Ophelia said, seeming to have finished the salad she'd been eating. "I can't help but feel a little hopeless."

"Well, there probably isn't anything we could do to help if we were there," Theodoros said. "There are lots of better healers in the city."

She shook her head softly. "It's not that. It's more the sense of... Knowing that so much is probably happening, that everyone is probably so upset... And not being able to talk to them, to try to make things a little better. And to make sense of it alongside them." She frowned. "I'm sorry, I'm not putting this into words very well."

"You're fucking right you're not," came a brusque voice from the edge of the steps. "It's bad enough having to listen to the rest of you spout off your navel-gazing for half an hour. I might start smashing my head into this wall if I have to listen to it in your broken Ysaran too."

The source of this comment was Ezekiel, who, as it turned out, really was in the sanctuary as Seth had described. He was short for a man - about my height - but not unhandsome, with a square face and fairly balanced, almost forgettable features, save for his thick eyebrows and slightly too-wide mouth. He was Ysaran, with an ashy-tan complexion and straight black hair cut to only a few inches in length, and was currently dressed in an expensive looking black dress robe with a white sash.

He looked bored, and annoyed to boot, staring imperiously towards the pond instead of the rest of the group, his skinny legs bent up as he leaned against the dark stone of the order's headquarters.

Blop, blop.

He was holding his scepter - angular, wrought of gold and obsidian, with a traditional angular head adorned with cut diamonds - up in front of him, and was idly raising a rock out of the pond repeatedly, floating it around in the air a little, and then dropping it back down. He had been doing this since he arrived, which was now coming up on 30 minutes straight.

We all knew better than to ask him to stop. It wouldn't lead anywhere productive.

"Well, if you're not enjoying our conversation," Kamrusepa said coldly, "there is absolutely nothing preventing you from waiting for the conclave to start someplace else."

Her face added, 'for example, several feet underwater over there'. Ezekiel was maybe the only person in the class for whom her ambient attitude and patience levels were wholly deserved.

"Yes there is," he said, flicking his gaze in her direction. "If I go too far away from the rest of you - and these doors - they won't know where to find me. I'll make a bad impression."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that too much, I should think," she said sharply.

For much the same reason, no one bothered to confront him about his remark to Ophelia, because this exact scenario had played out multiple times over the past two years already. Someone would point out that he's a native speaker and ask if he knew any Saoic/Mekhian/Rhunbardic/etc, he'd respond that learning 'mud languages' was beneath him. Someone would tell him to go easy on her because she was from the Lower Planes, he'd reply that she shouldn't be at the school to begin with.

Ezekiel, if you hadn't picked up on this a while ago from the context clues, was an aggressively unpleasant person. At best aloof and asocial, and at worst (which was often) outright hostile to any attempt to interact with him.

He was also the second highest performing academically in the class, surpassing even myself and Kam... Which, alongside the fact that he at least had the self-awareness to tone it down in front of authority figures, was what kept him from being kicked out. There'd certainly been enough complaints.

At this point, our mentality towards him had become more akin to managing a natural hazard than anything else. Ignore when possible, don't engage in any depth, and whenever he says ridiculously awful things, just try to tune it out. It was the most that could be done.

"I'd just like to be able to hear my own thoughts while we wait for them to let us in. Need to think..." Ezekiel grumbled, his eyes wandering to the ground. "Though they sure are taking their time. If they're going to cancel it after all, then they should get on with it."

"Y'know," Ptolema mused, "I never thought about it before, but it is kinda weird they were holding this thing on the day of the anniversary to begin with. A lot of people probably would've had to miss it, even before all this happened."

"There are only so many days in the year, Ptolena," Kamrusepa said in a dismissive tone, after swallowing a mouthful of food. She's gone back to eating, now that the conversation seemed to have died down.

"Well, yeah, I guess..." she said, not sounding convinced. "I feel like there'd have to be something better than this, though. It's almost like they wanted it not to work out."

That's a surprisingly good point, I thought to myself.

But then, judging by everything I'd heard about the internal politics of the organization, it was hardly an unbelievable notion. It wouldn't surprise me if Neferuaten had insisted on the date in an attempt to kill off the entire idea, only for the headmaster to happily agree anyway. Shameless prick.

Ezekiel's interjection had successfully killed all momentum in the conversation, so after that, it died off for a little, or at least diminished to smaller-scale exchanges between individuals. Ran, who was sitting with me and had been keeping quiet so far - as usual - finished eating the sandwich and couple rolls she gathered up, she took out the book she'd started earlier.

Fatigue was starting to catch up with me again, so I stared into space for a while, idly picking off the last flecks of flesh from a grilled lamb chop I'd been eating and licking them off my fork. My eyes kept wandering back over to the stupid rock, dipping in and out of the water. One of the disadvantages of being good at picking up on small details was that it was really easy for me to get preoccupied or distracted by things. I couldn't keep clocks by the side of my bed because the ticking would keep me awake.

Despite the simplicity of what he was doing, it was actually something most arcanists would struggle to pull off. Well, not struggle to pull off at first-- Again, telekinesis was probably the easiest thing to use the Power for besides creating heat. But keeping it going for such a long time would normally sap the eris in a scepter dry.

Ezekiel, though, had a special gift for it.

Though it was referred to as a single event, the process of Induction actually had two distinct components. The first, which you've probably started to piece together by now, was something which people didn't really talk about. I'll... Save that part for later, when it's more appropriate.

The second part of the process, what laymen normally thought of as the whole thing, was anchoring what was referred to as an 'index' to the subject's pneumaic nexus-- Oh, I probably ought to explain that.

In the Imperial Era, it had been discovered that human consciousness had an extra-planar element - not quite anything grandiose as a soul (though some people were eager to spin it that way), but something outside of the confines of classical physics. To simplify it, the brain 'grew' a small component of itself on a higher plane, taking advantage of the altered state of reality to assist with the most complicated aspects of cognition. When the world was destroyed and mankind's relationship with other planes altered, the Ironworkers created a new organ to assist with the process, which sat at the base of the cerebrum.

That was the pneumaic nexus. I'd seen them in autopsies; they looked like small, flat chunks of soft crystal. In many senses, they'd become the most important part of the brain. Destruction or maldevelopment meant certain death.

Anyway. If that element could be thought of as an arm which reached into the Higher Planes, then the index was a key to unlock their deeper reaches-- To the great extra-dimensional edifices and machines crafted by the ancients, and appropriated by the Ironworkers to permit commanding the Power. A tiny slice of divinity cut from the fingers of the gods. (Or God, if you were an Atenist or Principist.)

To make sure that those commands never became confused, each key was unique - a combination of one of four aspects (Separating, Convening, In Paroxsym, or Still) for each of the ten dimensions of reality, with each part element also possessing either a temporal or atemporal nature. This meant that there were technically a finite number of indexes, though said number happened to be 1,073,741,824. So functionally, it wasn't going to happen.

Still, certain indexes were better than others, and they marginally affected ones ability to control the Power in various subtle ways. In Ezekiel's case, it afforded him a superior natural skill at drawing eris back to his scepter after using it, a technique that was normally extremely difficult. It helped less for more complicated or demanding incantations, but for stuff like this? Well, he could keep it up forever.

But for most people, myself included, they did nothing, or things so subtle you could barely even notice. Sometimes they even made things worse; Kamrusepa's index meant any Divination incantation she used was infected with a small amount of junk data, which she complained about whenever she lagged behind the class in the field. So far, scholars had only a rough idea of how to predict what they would do beforehand, enough to avoid the overtly bad ones. Supposedly there was a breakthrough expected to happen in the near future, but it was too late to help me, so I found it hard to care about it.

After some amount of time had passed sitting and staring aimlessly, my mind started wandering to bad places. So I decided to force my attention away and make an attempt at a conversation with Ran.

"So..." I said.

"So," she replied, not looking up from her book.

"Feels like it's been a week since we were worrying about if the food here would be any good back in the cafe, yesterday," I said idly.

"You're being overdramatic," she said. "It's not been that bad."

I snorted. "You're only saying that because you missed what happened with Ophelia. That nearly killed me."

"I heard you handled it pretty well," she said, in what was, by her standards, an affirmative tone. "Though, I guess you're right. I'll still be glad when we get back."

"Well, I might not be going back, depending on how things go with Samium," I said, with a sad smile. "I mean, in a manner of speaking...."

She glanced at me, giving an uneasy, wary look. "Don't be weird, Su. Even if everything-- Even if it goes the way you're hoping, it's not like he's going to just wave his scepter and do it on the spot." She turned back. "You'll have some time. We will."

"You think so...?" I scratched my head, looking at my lap. "I honestly have no idea what'll happen. I haven't even been able to picture it... How any of it'll happen."

She sighed softly, but didn't say anything further. A moment or two passed, the only sound in the bioenclosure the chatter of the others.

"So," I said for a second time. "What's this new one about, then?"

"It's a pretty standard fantasy fare," she said, not requiring clarification. "It's a setting where the two races are humans and dragons. In the background, the dragons hunted the humans and everything was textbook, but eventually the humans discovered that if they cut out dragon organs and implant them in themselves, they can gain some of their powers and magic. This then becomes the basis for their whole society, and it causes a cultural and technological revolution which completely reverses the dynamic."

I blinked. "That doesn't sound standard. It sounds pretty esoteric."

Ran shrugged. "When you read enough of this shit, all the gimmicks are basically just window dressing. What's important is imagery. Plate armor, big old-fashioned Rhunbardic castles, swords, fantasy creatures... That's what makes something typical." She yawned. "But anyway, in the actual plot, dragons have almost been hunted to extinction, which is causing a crisis since human civilization uses them for everything. They decide to start farming them instead, but the dragons always tear themselves apart rather than letting themselves be captured, and if they just steal the eggs, they die before hatching without their mother."

"So what happens?" I asked, trying to look invested.

"Well, the politicians in charge of the dominant country - who are kinda the villains of the story, I guess - decide that instead of that, they gonna try putting so many dragon parts in a person that they're basically a true hybrid, then just have them give birth to and take care of the eggs themselves. The actual title is 'Wrymmother', in reference to this concept."

"This sounds some someone's fetish," I said skeptically.

She snorted. "If I started disqualifying genre fiction on those kinda suspicions, I'd have to throw out nine of every ten books," she said, flipping the page over. "But yeah, the narrative is about the first lady they experiment on in this way - who's a convicted thief, born into a horribly poor background, yada yada - running away, and then bouncing between a bunch of the factions in the setting with different agendas while trying to figure how to unfuck the situation, and create an outcome where neither dragon nor human civilization has to be destroyed, but where they also don't create a new slave class of incubator-people raising sentient beings as livestock."

"Huhh," I said, and thought for a moment. "So, like, what does the main character look like? Has she got a tail, and a creepy long lizard mouth, or..." I made a conal motion with my hands in front of my face to illustrate the second half of the question.

"Why do you ask?" she asked, frowning.

"I dunno," I said. "I mean, it's a weird concept, isn't it? I don't know what to visualize."

She stared at me for a moment, then let out a small sigh. "She just has wings and lizard feet and claws and some scales on her lower body."

"Oh," I said, disappointed. "That's boring."

"I guess they wanted to be safe and make her someone the reader wouldn't have trouble identifying with," she said.

"I mean," I muttered, "It's probably that they wanted her to still be hot, I'd think."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're really hung up on this point, Su."

"Sorry," I said, scratching the back of my head. "So, is it any good?"

She shrugged. "It's average. As far as I can tell, it's going for a bunch of high-minded themes about transhumanism, the cycle of hatred and violence, and society exploiting the bodies of women... But the actual delivery is pretty muddled, and falls apart amidst a bunch of stuff the author obviously only stuck in because they pressed some personal button. Also, there's a romance plot at the center of the narrative that's really pissing me off."

"I thought you liked romance?"

"I do," she said. "In romance novels."

Just then, someone cleared their throat to the right of us, drawing our attention.

It was, somewhat to my surprise, Yantho. He was smiling, an expression I hadn't seem on him before, in a manner that was also different to how I would have anticipated - almost immature, anxious and eager at the same time. When he noticed he had our attention, words quickly appeared on his tablet.

I hope you don't mind me intruding, but I overheard some of your conversation, it said. You're talking about Wrymmother, right?

"Yeah," Ran said, with a nod. "That's right."

"Uh, she is, at least," I said. "I haven't read it, so I was mostly just listening."

He nodded a few times. I just read it recently, myself. If it's alright for me to ask, are you a fan of Rashida of Anappur's work in general?

"Well, I wouldn't really call myself a fan," Ran said, and subtly shifted into the slightly more intense tone she had whenever talking to someone who actually shared her hobby. "I've been reading her stuff ever since I got recommended Glens of the Wraithmist, but I've only got really into a few of her books other than that one."

Which ones? And then, after a short pause: Sorry, I probably shouldn't be talking with guests like this. I've just never met anyone else who's read the series before, so it kind of took me aback.

"It's fine," Ran said, actually setting the book down and looking up at him. "Let's see... Well, my favorite in terms of technical skill is probably The Blighted Stars, just because it sticks to its tone and theme really well, and a mix of fantasy and horror is hard to pull off to begin with, since the lack of realism makes it really hard to capture the visceral aspect properly. But my favorite in terms of how much I actually enjoyed it was Twystwytch, even though it was kind of pulpy garbage. The main character's situation just really resonated with me in a way I didn't expect."

His eyes lit up. Oh, I'm a big fan of Twistwytch, too! I know what you mean. I don't really get into villain protagonists most of the time, but the way she became almost dehumanized by the other characters because they didn't feel comfortable dealing with what had happened to her really made me empathize a lot with her perspective.

"Yeah-- Exactly," she said with a nod, but then hesitated. "Uh, don't say too much, though. I've been trying to get her to read it for years, so I don't want to spoil the plot." She pointed a finger towards me.

"Wait, read what, sorry?" I asked, a little overwhelmed.

"Twistwytch. We were just discussing it."

"Oh... Right," I said, and nodded despite not actually remembering very well.

Truth be told, Ran had recommended me so many novels over the years that I couldn't even keep track at this point. Since I'd been accepted into the House of Resurrection, I felt like I had less and less time and patience for proper books, and usually only played echo games or sometimes read mystery stuff, but I didn't have the heart to start shooting her down. "Well, I could step away, if you want to talk about it properly..."

Yantho shook his head quickly. No, no. I'm sorry, I don't want to cause any fuss. He turned back to Ran. And Blighted Stars is good, but I think my favorite is probably Siege of the Shattered Pass. I read that when I was still in school, and it had a really big impact on me because it was the first ever fantasy book I read that actually seemed emotionally sincere in terms of the characters inner lives. It felt like the first time I'd really been spoken to on my own terms by an author. It's probably make me too sentimental about the series, too be honest. He smiled meekly.

"Well, I can't relate to that one specifically, but I definitely get where you're coming from," Ran said. "Not to say it's bad, or anything-- I enjoyed it. And the deaths at the end did get me."

Right! I've never seen someone balance telling a story about a hopeless situation with a fundamental message so full of hope.

"it was maybe a bit too sappy for my tastes," Ran said. "Still, I really liked some of the character arcs. Iryanka's whole storyline was..."

Slowly, I started to lose the grip on the conversation, my gaze wandering from the two of them.

It wasn't like I felt alienated or unwelcome - it was cute to suddenly see this side of Yantho, and it helped me understand the protective attitude that Sacnicte seemed to have a little better, since it was clearer now that he was pretty young. And I was always happy whenever Ran clicked with someone like this, since she was usually so reserved when it came to strangers. But it would've felt stupid to chime in with questions or goofy comments in the same way as when it was just the two of us.

And I couldn't help but feel a little lonely, all of a sudden.

When you got right down to it, Ran and I didn't have that much in common. Not really. We chatted about them, but books and plays never clicked for us in the same way. We had no real shared hobbies other than things everyone liked to do. If it hadn't been for what'd happened, we would never have been friends.

In fact, I didn't even know if it was right to think of the relationship we did have as friendship. Maybe it would be better to say we had an 'alliance'. A bond forged through strife.

Hobbies aside, I didn't know if I was really capable of having true friends, in the state I existed in. People are like jigsaw pieces. Most of the time, even if you put them alongside one another, they won't connect. Their colors might match and they even look pretty if they're pushed up against each other, but with nothing to hold them together, they'll drift apart sooner or later.

But every so often, a tiny miracle takes place, and two which fit find each other. Contextualize each other in a way they never could on their own. Becoming... Just more, in every way. More beautiful. More meaningful.

...but, if you take a piece - or maybe two - and twist the little notches of the mesh, bend them or force them to connect in a way they're not intended to, like a child who doesn't understand the rules of the game... Then they'll lose that capability forever. They'll become an orphan of the puzzle, with no place for themselves. Unable to experience that miracle for the remainder of their existence. Unable to know what image they were meant to be a part of.

Many things about the human experience which are, in truth, immeasurably complicated processes, are taken for granted because nature has conspired to make them seem easier than they are. As a healer, that's something you learn quickly. Most women can take their ability to bear children as a given when planning their lives, but the actual process of creating a hospitable environment for a child to develop to term within a human body is shockingly complicated-- And for the minority for whom things aren't so simple, who have to bend the world to do something that others get for nothing, that truth becomes starkly clear.

I'd come to understand that love, both platonic and romantic, is similar. Being able to show yourself. To care about things, and share those passions with others in a coherent and natural way. To understand others, and see yourself in them. To feel happy building a life by their side.

All of them were links in a complex chain which could easily shatter. Even what I had with Neferuaten hadn't really felt like love. It was something born of its absence. The flowers that grew on the stump.

I smiled weakly, looking down at my palms. You have no one to blame but yourself.

"...it's not really an interesting story, or anything," Ran was saying casually, when I started to pay attention again. "I was just a bored and miserable kid looking for easy escapism. Probably the same as most people."

For me, I could never fit in with the culture in our arcology, Yantho replied. I suppose you could say that it's too energetic. Everyone is either doing some kind of sport, or at least has some faster-paced type of hobby, like music or something to with technology. Sorry, "faster paced" doesn't feel like quite the right way to put that. My Ysaran can still be a little patchy.

"I got what you mean," Ran said, in an easygoing tone. "I guess it was more a luxury debt issue for us. We couldn't get a logic engine, or at least not one that could do anything exciting, and lived too far away from any of the theaters. Well, I wasn't exactly athletic either." She snorted. "How come you didn't read stuff in Lluatetci?"

Oh, they're talking about how they got started reading novels.

Well, I did when I was very young, but the literary scene in the Duumvirate isn't very rich when it comes to more niche works. And I've always been good at using a logic engine, and in that context, it's honestly easier to get stuff from the Mimikos.

A strange bitterness started to well up in me at being left out, even though that was a ridiculous feeling to be having. I suddenly felt the need to speak up and say something, anything, to just be a part of the moment. But I felt paralyzed. My whole body stiffened, as if bound by coils of rope.

Ugh. Why was my personality like this?

I was starting to entertain thoughts of going to take a walk to clear my head when, suddenly, Seth spoke up, addressing the group at large again. Ran and Yantho broke off their exchange, turning to face him too.

"Hey," he said. "Since we've been out here for so long, anyone up to spar a little bit? I could use a warm-up for all the incanting I'm going to be doing when this gets going."

There were a few moments of silence as this idea was processed.

"Er, don't we need to conserve our eris for our presentations?" Theo asked, hesitant.

"Nah, they have a pool in the conference room," Seth said dismissively. "I saw it earlier."

"I rather think it would be insensible to get our outfits dirty," Kamrusepa stated.

"We'll do it without any physical attacks, first to resistance break," he said, smiling. "'course, I'm not gonna force anybody."

As part of the standard introductory courses on using the Power, all acolytes learned the basics of arcane combat, even if they planned on a career that was the complete opposite. It was an artifact from the Tricenturial War era that was now too ingrained into the system to get rid of. For the majority of non-military arcanists, this faded from educational and professional culture quickly a few years down the line, but because of the paradoxical but inherent link between counteracting violence and, well, doing violence, and the fact that there was a lot of crossover in the skill sets, a culture of occasional dueling remained among healers.

This is why Neferuaten had challenged me earlier. After all, you weren't just testing someones ability to fight in a duel. You were also testing how good they were at thinking on their feet, how quick they were with the beguilements...

"I suppose it could provide some entertainment for the others, at least," Bardiya said, rising to his feet.

Seth smirked. "Heh, I knew you'd be game for it, Bard."

Kamrusepa frowned, but not deeply. She didn't seem too bothered by this. "Just try not to leave any marks on the area," she said. "I don't want to give an explanation."

They headed over to the area under the tree, and my eyes followed.