THE ORIGINS OF THE BEACON’S INSIGHT
Recorded by Ink-Talon
I’m no scientist or historian, so I can’t exactly do much of anything “properly” when it comes to research like this, so I hope a plain list with comments and speculation is okay. The following are the pieces of Insight that Quiet-Dream and I have been able to identify, along with what we know of their origins in our world. There’s a fair amount to go through, so I’ll probably need to stop and come back later to make more additions.
* The Butterfly Dream (and associated discourse): This is a pretty famous story in our world. The philosopher in question lived a few thousand years before I was born and recorded the dream along with a bunch of other writings. It’s a fun thought experiment to speculate on, but I can absolutely imagine other philosophers getting fed up with random people using it to claim that we can’t know if anything actually exists.
* The Fable of the Mouse and the Lion: This is a similarly ancient story, credited to a storyteller whose name became synonymous with “moralizing children’s story.” I really like how confused the original maker of the records was, because not only is the moral extremely obvious, but the whole story is predicated on there being a danger of the lion eating the mouse, which simply wouldn’t happen if the two were Gifted as they assumed.
* The White Obelisk: This one is harder to pin down definitively, since rather than being a complete story, it’s just an image that was described and recorded as best they could. But a white stone obelisk with smooth sides and a tiny metal cap is probably a monument situated in the capital city of the nation I lived in. It was dedicated to the nation’s first official leader… and that’s about as much as I know about it. Didn’t really care much for the country or its history, to be honest.
* An Eagle Lands on a Tranquil Sea: This one initially stumped us completely, because there’s clearly some level of symbolism that got taken literally somewhere in this process, and what’s described is just complete nonsense as a result. After coming back to it later, though, I think I’ve figured out exactly what it was describing. It was the crew of a vessel named “Eagle” that landed in a crater on the Moon that had been called “The Sea of Tranquility” by astronomers. Now that I’m actually writing this down, I realize that the entire idea sounds absurd out of context, but I assure you that our species actually made an effort to travel to a stellar body just to say we could. Multiple times. (Actually, does this world even have a moon? I can’t recall seeing one, but I also haven’t made a habit of staying up very long past sunset or stargazing as a crow…)
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“Hey, Quiet-Dream,” Ink-Talon croaked, looking up from his writing to address his companion. “Did you spend much time looking at the night sky on the trip here?” The squirrel was busy staring at more of the records, gingerly using his paws to spread out the old parchment into an arrangement they could both easily read. The twitching of his ears indicated that he had very much heard Ink-Talon call out to him, but he didn’t answer, his gaze fixed on what was in front of him. When he did finally speak, it wasn’t to Ink-Talon.
“Archivist, exactly how old are these records?”
“As I said, they were recorded not long after the College’s founding. Six hundred and eighty one years ago, to be precise.”
“...Oh.” The squirrel visibly tensed up and took a deep breath.
“What’s wrong?” Ink-Talon stepped closer, taking care not to drip any ink on the records.
“This one is Star Wars.”
“What?”
“The record I’m looking at is of Star Wars. A New Hope.”
“And? All of this Insight seems to be things of cultural significance rather than more practical knowledge. Star Wars fits. It just feels weird because it’s so…”
“Modern?” Quiet-Dream turned to look at the crow, his expression entirely unreadable. He was never this calm. “That movie wasn’t even fourty years old last I remember, and yet they caught a glimpse of it here centuries ago. Even if years here turn out to be significantly shorter, it doesn’t line up.”
“But then, that would mean-” Ink-Talon cut himself off, noticing something odd in what the squirrel just explained. “Wait, not even forty? I could have sworn that it was over fifty years old. It was released in the 1970’s, right?”
“1977, I think?” There was a long awkward silence as the pair tried to figure out how to approach the topic, or if they even wanted to. But eventually Ink-Talon gave up, just asking the obvious question rather bluntly.
“Quiet-Dream, what year was it for you when you were last human?”
“...2016,” the squirrel muttered, knowing full well what he was getting at.
“It was 2028, for me.”
The two returned to their silence. Ink-Talon couldn’t tell how the squirrel was feeling about this, and that worried him. All he could do was brace himself for the inevitable explosion of emotion. Archivist Sharp-Search likewise gave them their space. He had no idea if the porcupine could grasp exactly what they had realized, but he appreciated the consideration regardless. He wasn’t sure that any of the animals here were equipped to handle Quiet-Dream in a crisis. He barely was himself. However, the squirrel didn’t explode. He didn’t scream or cry or retreat inside himself.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
For what felt like the first time the crow could remember, Quiet-Dream relaxed.
“Surprised?” the squirrel chirped, flopping over onto his side, looking like he’d just gotten done sprinting. “I am too. This should be the most devastating news imaginable to me, and yet… I’m relieved.”
“Why?”
“As long as there was ever the slightest chance of going home, of returning to my old body, I would have searched for it. I would have worried and researched and traveled and wasted the rest of my life searching for it. But if we’re all displaced in time, if we’re all from the distant past, and different points at that, then that’s it. We’re never going home. Not to the home we knew, at least. I don’t have to worry about searching for a way to do it anymore.” Quiet-Dream froze for a moment and stared at Ink-Talon before rolling back onto his paws. “You’re not remotely shocked by that. You already knew, didn’t you?”
“Not definitively, but… yeah.” The crow sighed, his gaze falling to the floor. “Back after I lost my ‘Gift’ briefly from that crash landing, I realized something. Our minds, whatever we are as people, they’re attached to this existence. I… stopped existing without the Gift of Understanding. I didn’t have an out-of-body experience, I didn’t have any experience. This consciousness, in this body, is all that I am. I realized we were never going home, because our minds can’t travel elsewhere. If we leave, we… cease.”
“No wonder you leaned so hard into learning about this world. You were preparing for the rest of your life right from the start.”
“You’re not angry that I kept this from you?”
“Do you honestly think I would have taken it well at that point?” Quiet-Dream reared up on his haunches, took a moment to catch his balance, and then hugged Ink-Talon, wrapping his little forelegs as far around his feathered body as he could manage, in the most distinctly human way he could manage. “The hope of this being temporary was basically all that kept me going initially. You made the right choice. Thanks.”
What do I do here? Ink-Talon froze upon receiving the sudden display of appreciation, and had to walk himself through what was even going on. Obviously he was happy that Quiet-Dream had finally obtained some manner of solace in their situation, even if it was bittersweet, but… Do I return the hug? Is that too intimate, implying a romantic connection I don’t feel? I’m so much larger than him. Would just tucking him under my wing like the kits come off as patronizing? Is just snuggling closer less intimate than an embrace, or more? How am I supposed to parse any of this with such different bodies and no Understanding of the nuances?
“Hey.” Quiet-Dream released him and stumbled a bit before dropping back onto all fours. “You’re fine, don’t worry. But…” The squirrel shuffled back a step and looked up. He was about to point out something awkward. “When you’re working through a problem like that, you open and close your beak in such a way that anyone who looks at you can Understand exactly what you’re thinking.”
“Oh,” Ink-Talon cringed, immediately fluffing up out of embarrassment. “Oh no.” He’d always mouthed things to himself like that as a human. It helped him process his thoughts better. He hadn’t considered that he’d held on to the habit despite it both no longer being private and also being rendered useless otherwise. “Have I been doing that the whole time?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“You were always thinking through something important, so I didn’t want to bother you.” Quiet-Dream sat down and awkwardly scratched behind his head with a forepaw, only barely able to reach the itch if he craned and twisted his neck thanks to his seeming unwillingness to use his hind legs for that. “This time was silly, though, so it was fair game.” He finally got the spot and let out a relieved sigh. “Also, for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t have felt patronized if you had just draped a wing over me. We’ve got to work with the bodies we’ve got, right?”
“I apologize for interrupting, but…” a tentative squeak from nearby reminded the former humans that they were not alone in the room. “You just discovered a lot of important things that I will need to record and share with the Scholars, but I have a more pressing question for you, Quiet-Dream.” Archivist Sharp-Search waddled closer, and Ink-Talon couldn’t tell if the porcupine was concerned or curious. “You expressed earlier that the hope of returning to your home sustained you. What sustains you now?”
“That’s supposed to be pressing?” Quiet-Dream stared dumbfounded at the Archivist, though even Ink-Talon could tell that the question had caught him off-guard. A familiar discomfort had already started to creep back into his stance.
“It is pressing because your well being matters. If not to yourself, then to Ink-Talon.” Sharp-Search’s eyes focused on the crow as she mentioned him, though he got the feeling that it was talking about its old partner instead. “Lacking a reason to live is dangerous.”
“Oh,” Quiet-Dream chirped out a tense response before taking a deep breath, managing to release that tension before it caused a problem. “I haven’t really thought about it, but…” The squirrel closed his eyes to think, and kept thinking for at least a minute. Sharp-Search simply watched patiently, but Ink-Talon couldn’t help but feel more concerned with each passing moment.
“Let it think.” Sharp-Search silently waved a paw at the crow, having noticed his discomfort. “You do not have anything to worry about.”
If you say so. Ink-Talon was at a loss. Such a sudden change in attitude didn’t seem right. But then again… was it so sudden? Quiet-Dream had just quietly resigned himself to suffer at some point in these last few days, or at least, that was his impression. Having some of the uncertainty of it all removed must have given him a new perspective on things. Maybe this moment of clarity was what he needed to really start to sort things out? He could only hope.
“I… still want to go home,” Quiet-Dream finally murmured his answer, opening his eyes and looking at Ink-Talon. “I want all of us to be able to go home. But since we don’t have a home to go back to anymore, we need to find a home. To make a home.” As he explained, a newfound confidence overtook his expressions, and he began to gesture with a surprising amount of energy. “And I do mean all of us. All of the humans who have found their way here. Me, you, Maggie, Song, the bat, even the kits, they count too. But also the ones we haven’t met yet. Because there’s more than just us, right? We already know about at least one, and we all seemed to have popped up along the border of the Lost Lands around the same time. That place is huge. How many more of us are out there, just as lost and confused, and possibly in even worse situations? I… want to find them. To help them, like we’ve helped each other.” Turning to Sharp-Search, he added, “How’s that for a reason to live?”