Unipsi, lovely entity
chapter 79c: footprints
Once Scilla carried Iris back to her bed, she stuck around. Having time at her disposal she searched the room looking for something interesting. Scattered around multiple locations she found thick plates of a transparent material. They were rectangular shaped and at the bottom there was a region with clearly some circuits implanted. At the slighted touch they would turn on, showing files with countless projects of all kinds of things. She for sure recognized some weapons blueprints, but some were totally out of her league. Other than the fancy pictures and strange drawings, the difference in language was obvious. Her immediate thought was that whatever language she was reading was for sure not Estir. The font was compact and complex, almost totally unreadable. It looked nothing like the other documents she saw, yet it looked similar to the word written with flowers on 484's tomb. She tried to translate it, but her translator printed out [error][unknown language]. She was facing one of the hardest challenges that all Esterian faces. Reading composite Estir. It was the exact same language as Estir but used a different alphabet and complex writing rules to conceal it’s meaning. It was developed by the Founder and his wife as a self-encrypting writing system that also contained the reading key. It was not absurdly complex as a fair percentage of people could be trained to read it. Any advanced machine could easily break it if it knows where to start. What made composite Estir so hard to learn and almost impossible to master was the lack of reference. Composite Estir was just totally foreign to all creatures. It had no traceable inspiration coming from other languages or from mathematical structures. It was chaotic and lacked order. A mixture of wobbly circles, half-drawn triangles, bent lines, 3D projection, and only the Founder knows what. Lack of reference and knowledge of the language made it so far impossible to be read unless taught to.
More and more documents emerged from the room. Not a single one was written in standard Estir.
Uff. No secret documents for me I guess… mmh. What now? Waiting is kinda boring. I don’t really know when she is going to wake up… I’ll go find something else. Load it on my tablet and then come back.
It took a while for Iris to wake up. 18 hours to be precise. Long enough for Scilla to take up space beside her and fall asleep. After the 18 hours of unconsciousness, Iris woke up tired. She immediately noticed the change of scenery and Scilla. The sleeping Lean was wrapped in her hair.
She brought me home. Her breathing is stable. She must be deep asleep. I wonder why my hair is always getting to her. Why? There are no anomalies in her body. The only gravron in her body comes from the food she eats and is not assimilated. So why? What is my body telling me? What am I not seeing? Is it telling me to eat her? I don’t think so. I can incorporate enough of her just by sniffing and eating dead cells.
Iris moved her hand on Scilla’s shoulder and then shook her. Scilla woke up immediately.
“sorry I didn’t want to intrude in your bed but…”
Iris interrupted. Her star-shaped eyes coldly stare at Scilla.
“you don’t have to worry. I suppose you decided to stay because our rooms are far apart, waited a lot for me and ended up falling asleep. Am I right?”
“… spot on. But I want to add on it.”
“go on”
“I carried you back and I didn’t know what to do. Obviously, I couldn’t put you into your bed because your clothes were ‘dirty’. Of course, I can’t just change you. So I put you on top of your bed and looked for a different blanket to place on top. Please tell me I did it all right”
Iris moved her hand to caress Scilla’s hair.
“yep. You did it all perfectly. Thank you.”
“yes!… so what happened to you? Should I worry?”
“not really. It was not particularly dangerous. At least not for me. By now I suppose you may have created your own ideas about my working principles. Too bad they are all wrong…”
“but I didn’t speak”
“doesn’t matter. Nobody was able to figure me out. Me included. You said yourself that you aren’t smart. Still tell your hypothesis about my nature”
“Iris. With as much respect as possible. Pull the fucking broom out of your ass and cut your crap.”
Iris’s eyes opened wide as they spiked. They no longer looked dead and bored.
“I’ll show you the fucking broom!”
Iris jumped up onto Scilla pushing her back down on the bed. Scilla blocked her with her arms and adding some help from the legs she was able to keep Iris in the air above her.
“just wait till I get to your cheeks. I’ll pinch them all!” exclaimed Iris trying to free herself from Scilla. Now that her playful intent became obvious, Scilla decided to play along. She smiled back with a grin.
“have you ever played the airplane?”
“no?? what’s that?”
Scilla started shaking Iris moving left and right. Lowering her altitude and then extending both arms and legs to push her in the air as much as possible. Judging by Iris’s laughter she was clearly having fun and so was Scilla. They kept going for a few more minutes before Iris asked to be released.
“you know sometimes you can really be hateful. Especially when you speak as if you know everything. Why did you do that?” asked Scilla.
“I don’t really know. It’s kind of a way to keep people away. If nobody likes you, you don’t have to worry about them trying to get closer right?”
“but aren’t we friends? Why pushing me away?”
“I… I don’t know what friends do. How they behave. I never had a friend. All I know is that you don’t eat your friend.”
“you would have eaten me?”
“Depends. But probably.”
“well at least you are honest”
“still I told you to not worry about my… condition. But I suppose you should…. To some degree.”
“do you explode or something?”
“not really. Just really aggressive.”
“what’s the cause?”
“I told you. It’s my own nature that I can’t understand. I can try to describe this… phenomena. But I make no promises. Changing body is an unstable process. Even if there is no evidence you could view the process as cells that return to a primordial unaltered form and rearrange to assume the new shape. The same goes for my own atoms and molecules. It’s a process that goes against nature as it requires no tangible energy but the outcome produces energy. Or so I would say. In my case is more like as if they never reach the outcome. They keep all the energy but their shape changes. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like photon emission. You are sure that if you see light then something is dissipating energy. In my case, you could see light but there is no energy dissipation. Only the impossible energy creation. But all of this was to explain a bit. With words and events that make sense to us and that we can observe. However, that’s not my case. I just swap at infinite speed. At least at a speed not measurable. Cells are me and a so small to be not measurable instant later they aren’t. by all means I am impossible. Yet I’m here. I figured that all my issues must be related to such impossibility”
“I appreciate the explanation. But how do you… live with said condition? Why and how often does it happen?”
Iris smiled and looked away. She moved to stare outside at the snow falling heavily.
“I believe several phenomena could be correlated to my natural instability. But what you saw yesterday?”
“yep yesterday”
“was a rare occurrence. There is no frequency or schedule. Nor I know how badly I will be impacted. I could just walk off sounding like I’m dying while being completely fine. Or hallucinate my way into a frenzy of death. As far as I know, even in the worst case, all you have to do is remain calm when I’m around. In such condition, I would not harm you. It’s like a hangover. Shouting will only make me angry and bring me to attack you.”
“you speak as if you can’t control yourself”
“cause it’s exactly that. I lose my sense of reality. I just see monsters trying to hurt me. So I fight back. If you scream you become exactly the same and I can’t really tell you apart from my hallucinations”
“got it. So what was in the injector? And how could we mitigate your effects?”
an uncomfortable long silent pause later and Iris finally replied.
“we?”
“yes, WE. I decided that I want to assist you as much as possible. So tell me how to.”
“I don’t really know. The best solution so far was to just put me to sleep. Or give me some tranquilizers. Which as you could guess are the usual medicines that I take. Pills just calm me down while the injector is meant to force me asleep.”
“are your nightmares correlated?”
“only partially, as some hallucinations appear in both. I still have no clue why your presence removed them. Do you have nightmares when we share a bed?”
“no, quite the opposite. I never slept so well in my life. Nor have I ever woke up feeling so good and recharged.”
“does my hair impair you in some way?”
“no. I was a bit freaked out the first time, but I got used to waking up in them. Maybe you should use some scanners on me and see what is different”
“I doubt it would work. You have nothing special…”
“oh…”
“in a good way. A good way!”
“I was joking. I won’t sulk for that. But I’m not totally normal. I’m immune to some of your magical air stuff that are used to control people's minds.”
“you told me you were stupid, never thought you were so stupid”
“Hey! The fuck?”
“I’m joking too. But your resistance to molecules is just due to your lack of receptors. It has nothing to do with me or why you seem to attract gravron”
Even with Iris’s explanations, Scilla kept understanding almost nothing. She was not particularly versatile in science.
“… so it was kind of a surprise to see that you fear needles…”
“Scilla I’ll have to interrupt you. I know I have been awake for just an hour, but I need to rest again.”
“oh, sorry. I’ll shut up then.”
“thanks, but before… I just want to say thank you and sorry for being an asshole before”
“you are forgiven. Don’t worry too much. I can somewhat understand that for you all social interactions are kinda new, strange and unpredictable”
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“indeed they are.”
Day after day spent with Iris brought out more of her raw personality. Iris was an unfiltered creature with little care or maybe understanding of others. She would speak her mind with brutal honesty and several times with playful dishonesty. Once she understood the concept of jokes and insults as jokes she started using them without end. As time passed Iris became more comfortable with Scilla’s presence and physical interactions. It was obvious that she liked touching things and loved to tease others to stimulate reactions, like a baby monkey full of energy. It was also obvious that Iris liked physical contact and physical play. She loved to scare the shit out of Scilla with ambushes and by jumping on her from dark corners. But time also told a different story. The story of a deeply thoughtful creature always thinking and daydreaming about what could be or could have been. A highly intelligent creature deeply immersed in her complex thoughts. A creature whose hobby was thinking and questioning reality both with science and logic. Sometimes she would also warden into morality and philosophy.
As Iris became more comfortable with Scilla, she started to stare into the void outside even in her presence. In such deep thoughts, Iris was always seated with her natural eyes twitching from time to time showing that something was happening. When submerged in her mind Iris was also less responsive. Yet it was part of her charm. Just like the Founder, lost in ideas.
As time passed the weather improved and Iris started to train Scilla on how to behave and survive on the surface. As spring started, the snow melted away leaving a green surface that slowly returned to shine under the sun. Iridana was protected by a drone dome, but even with that Iris forced Scilla to always carry a gun outside. Iris also prepared several sets of armor for Scilla. Sets built to sustain damage and also keep Scilla warm. Spring had just started and the average temperature at noon was just 7°C. As the weather improved Iris would spend more and more time outside, some of it spent actually working while most was spent tending at her personal graveyard while Scilla fooled around. In one of those days, Scilla found Iris sitting before 484 tomb staring at the flowers she planted in what looked like a praying position. Scilla got immediately curious and approached her.
“I thought you didn’t believe in god”
“the concept of god is impossible. More impossible than me.”
“It’s just something you believe in. There are so many unknown overpowered things out there. Maybe some are even watching us now.”
“but none are gods. Or to be more precise god. Some believe that god is everything. Those are wrong. If it is everything, then he is both a single entity and multiple entities. Yet you can’t be both as it’s a paradox. A perfect god can’t be material as matter is imperfect, so implies that god can’t be everything as this made it matter. If god can all then it can redefine time. It should be start and end at the same time. Such is impossible as you can’t be what has never been. God is natural laws is also false. If god can all it can bend unbendable laws that are part of itself. From a logical point, the concept of a real, true god is pure bullshit. There will never be one. What can be is creatures really close to it but never god. Creatures far beyond us will always be creatures. Your words carry truth. We may be watched, but no god is doing so. If god makes you, if god observing you to make you exist then you are a part of said god. An imperfect part that will make it imperfect.”
“you think way too much. But if you say so, why praying?”
“Scilla do you believe in god?”
“does it matter?”
“I know you do.”
“no. I don’t.”
“I won’t be mad. I personally don’t care. To each their own. So do you believe in god?”
“I mean… I’m unsure. You have great points. The one I understood. But I sort of want to believe that… there is more after death. A place of eternal peace you know?”
“I understand. You don’t belong to a religion. You just have faith. I admire that. Having faith. A personal connection between you and your greater entity. That’s what believers should all be. The moment you gather, the moment you put layers between you and your deity. Is the moment you have lost faith. Churches may tell you the opposite all because they gain from it.”
“do you believe in god?”
“no. it’s too convenient.”
“then why praying?”
“convenient. What do you think happens to atheists after death?”
“I don’t know. Ethereal darkness?”
“There is nothing. Not the nothing you are imagining. No dark place. Do you remember what you felt before you were born?”
“no? How could I? I wasn’t born”
“indeed. So for the same principle, there will be nothing after. Whatever there could be, you are no longer. You can’t perceive even darkness or emptiness”
“then you are praying because…?”
“Because I wish that there was more. I wish for a place where my sisters can live. Your same eternal peace, just for them. After all, they believed in a man-made deity. The Founder himself.”
A somewhat shocking revelation that however made a lot of sense. From the few interactions with other Esterians, it was clear that they viewed the Founder as some sort of superior creature.
“I always believe that religion was outlawed among Esterians.”
“I can’t speak for the outside. But if it’s the same as here then you are correct. Religions are outlawed. Faith isn’t. As long as it’s a one-on-one relationship you are fine. That’s the true foundation of all beliefs.”
“so even if you don’t care about god, you pray for them hoping that they were right in their choice?”
“more or less.”
“isn’t it more… no…. Isn’t it just more safe to believe in a god? I mean if one exists then you are good and will be in haven of whatever. If it doesn’t exist then you go into the same nothingness. But if you don’t believe and then there is a god, you end up in hell or some shit like that right?”
“but the Founder was no god. Nor are those keeping us alive. You see as they observe us. We observe them. Gods don’t exist on their own. They exist because people make them exist. And to a certain degree so are all fictional characters. As long as someone is watching they exist and watch back.”
“that… that last part makes no fucking sense.”
“either way. I would vastly prefer to just disappear. From dirt we came, to dirt we return. Also isn’t it a bad bet for you?”
“why?”
“I should stop speaking. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“fine. I’ll go somewhere else. See you later at home.”
“see you too Scilla.”
A month later the temperature reached 15°C and the wind was fairly calm for Weeping Sky standards. In such condition, Iris went to wake up Scilla and coerced her into participating in her plan.
“Scilla! Scilla! Wake up”
“mmh, what?”
“We are going to have a pickanica”
“a what?”
“… a packaduck?”
“ooohh. You mean a picnic”
“nah I’m fairly sure it’s packaduck, but whatever you got the point. So cook something we will go out at 11. then we will walk to my favorite spot. Just 30 minutes away.”
“some requests?”
“nope. Just be on time”
Iris brought Scilla to a remote creek submerged by nature but not too far from home. This was in a completely different direction from the others path they ever took. On their side of the 30 cm deep and 4 meters large creek, there was a simple camping zone. One large firepit with picnic tables around and slots for tents. In addition to that, there was a platform, that looked like wood but wasn’t, that extended across the creek. It was spotless. Everything was amazing. From the food to the location. From the bird chipping to Iris’s contagious laugh. In such a condition laying on a blanket over the creek platform, Scilla decided to be brave.
“Iris. I have something… important to tell you”
“mmh? Did you forget something? We can send a drone back…”
“no. it’s about me… and well you…”
“go on. I don’t bite… often”
“I love you Iris”
Iris replied immediately
“I love you too” she clearly mistook the meaning.
“not in the sense that I like spending time with you…”
“oh well fuck you too then…”
“stop joking and let me finish”
“sorry.”
“I love you romantically. I don’t want to remain just friends. I want to... to build a family with you. That is the love I’m feeling”
This time Iris remained silent. She was clearly thinking deeply.
“can I ask you a question first?”
“sure. You can ask all you want. Take all the time you need. I get that it’s kind of an asshole move to approach you here and…”
“shish. Don’t care about that. Let me ask. Do you have any regret about the war you took part in?”
Scilla was dumbfounded, she couldn’t understand the connection with being in love but replied anyway.
“I mostly don’t. I understand the brutality of my doing. War is no joke. But I can’t say that I regret it. I did what I had to do for my people. It was either fight to survive or die. I will always choose to fight. I don’t need to find justification for being right. My resolve weakens only when speaking about the extermination. To be clear I don’t regret ending the Droxi. Sort of. I know that it had to be done or we would have never been left in peace. However, I wonder if we could have gone a different route. Maybe war could have been avoided.”
“good answer.”
“by the way have you ever seen a Droxi?”
“yep. When I was little. As far as I know, my sisters abducted a huge amount for testing. They were all killed long ago.”
their conversation stopped before Iris spoke again.
“so… I’m fairly unsure about the concept of love. But I understand the concept of family. You also have several qualities that I like. You are big, naturally loud, you know how to cook. You take care of me. You try to defend and protect me. I like your physical build. You are stronger than me. Have a way better understanding of the social world and funny. At least to me…”
“thank y(you)…”
“But all of this doesn’t matter.”
“oh…”
“joking. He he. What matter even more is that you are curious, fairly stubborn, and loyal. You have a lot of good qualities that I like. You also worked a lot to improve yourself because I don’t like emotionally weak people and creatures that believe that screaming and violence solve all issues. So yeah. Issues that you had and fixed. I would appreciate to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t know exactly what love is but I think I can say that I love you too Scilla.”
At this point, Scilla had teary eyes filled with joy. She immediately hugged Iris who reciprocated for the first time.
“Hugs feel good. So as you are the social one. What are we now? Because we are not married so how is this thing called?”
“we are in a relationship. This is called being a couple”
“oh. What a name.”
“from now on you are my girlfriend and I suppose I’m your boyfriend… I’m unsure about that but I’ll look it up. Do you want me to give you some nicknames like babe or something?”
“I don’t really care. But if you want you can call me Iri. Kinda like the sound. Cause it sounds like eerie.”
Time flew as they kept relaxing and Iris showed Scilla her favorite activity. Putting her feet in the water below while staring at the cloud in the sky. In such peace, time faded until something touched Scilla’s leg. As she had her eyes closed she initially believed it was Iris doing some kind of prank until she asked.
“Iri, stop scratching my leg the fifth time is no longer funny”
“it ain’t me.”
Scilla immediately jumped up to see a greenish creature bolting away into a bush.
“Oh Scilla, you scare the shit out of that puppy”
“that what?
Iris pulled out of the backpack a small sack with huge seeds inside, like twice the size of a peach seed. Then she started talking toward the bush.
“piccolo, vieni. Qui piccolino. Guarda ho dei semi (shorty, come out. Here shorty. Look I have seeds)”
After several attempts the small creature slowly came out for the bush it had run into. It was around 30/35cm and could be described as a little nimble monkey made of trees mixed with a red panda. The creature was basically a living small tree mixed with a flower. It had a fine soft fur made of small bendy light green leaves. On the back, it had sort of an integrated coat made of larger leaves but those were a mix of green and some copper veins. It had a huge short tail like one of a crocodile. The head was composed of a monkey-like face with huge copper leaves as hair. The skin below was green like a flower stem yet it was soft like human skin. As if it understood Iris the creature timidly approached her, grabbed a seed and ran away to stop just before the bush. There he sat on its butt and he started eating the seed that was easily broken by his teeth.
“I thought there were no animals allowed”
“Those are fine. They are peaceful creatures.”
once he finished the seed it approached Iris again.
“look, look he is getting used to us”
“I get it, he is cute, but what exactly am I looking at?”
“he’s a nymph, a male one to be precise. They are little plant-like creatures that roam around spreading plants and pollens.”
each seed the creature remained closer and closer to Iris, until he literally allowed Iris to pet him.
“ti chiamerò Brillo(i shine / drunk). Perchè I tuoi capelli brillano come I miei. (i’ll call you Brillo, because your hair shines like mine)”
The creature stopped eating and focused on Iris’s hair, as if he understood her speaking. Then he started jumping and running around joyfully. He emitted 3 long acute sounds and Iris replied with similar sounds. Scilla recognizes the pattern. It was the same she saw in the video related to Iris’s development incident. a strange coincidence?
“from now on he will be our pet. And I call him Brillo. Cause his hair is shining. He seems to like it”
Iris then picked him up and showed him to Scilla, who noticed a peculiarity. The creature had yellow glowing eyes just like Iris. She pet Brillo too who in the meanwhile was happily eating another seed.
“I guess we can keep him. He is soft and cute after all.”
“See told you. He is just a little cute puppy.”