Once, as my heart remembers, all the stars were falling embers . . .

[oceantier]

Who: Lapis and Lesedi
What: Lapis pushes her luck too far.
When: Before the festival
Where: Pride
Warnings: Lesedi. Likely violence and mind bending.


It started with Steven.

As it usually did.

With Lapis and Steven spending time together, it was only inevitable that a prank would result, particularly one involving fart jokes. Together they'd conceived and hatched the plan: Sneak Lapis into restricted areas of Pride with her shapeshifting and spring fart sounds on unsuspecting Pride musicians. Giggle madly. Get away clean. Enjoy the simple time together, Lapis quietly marveling at the fact that she could make him laugh, keep him company, actually manage to keep him somewhat happy given the circumstances.

Unfortunately, it meant that Lapis had an idea in the process.

Even worse, it gave her the confidence to act on it.

Late one evening, after practice and after her goodbyes to Steven, she did it -- shifted to the shape of a tiny blue bird where she knew there were no cameras and entered the vent shaft whose cover she'd removed. Darting through the vents, she sought to go deeper, down and further down, to the areas of top restriction that she knew the existence of, but nothing about. She was seeking the memories -- the means by which Pride squeezed them from their owners' minds and stored them away . . . and even more so, how they could be removed, taken back, restored.

Somewhere along the line, she took a wrong turn. And she found something else.

Comments

[interdimanagers]

The strange thing about this room is that it doesn't actually have a door. The vents still lead to it, presumably for airflow purposes, but it's just the one tunnel. Otherwise, it's completely cut off from the rest of the building - which is perhaps not an issue if you are a member of an ancient race of aliens known primarily for their ability to manipulate time-space.

The room looks like something you might expect to do a seance in, with all kinds of random items, books, papers, and art sitting around in an artistic kind of mess. Lesedi is the only one in here, most likely, and she is not very tidy without the aid of another. The artifacts are as scattered as Lesedi's attention.

There is some kind of graphical computer interface in the middle of the room on a round table, featuring a touchscreen that isn't lit up at the moment for lack of use. When touched, it will light up and present access to what appears to be a selection of pictures and text and audio logs.

Books scattered across the room take the form of both things officially published and handwritten journals with period dialect and sometimes drawings and doodles of moderate skill. There is too much here to ever really dream about going through all at once, but just from skimming the collection something is obvious: this is Lesedi's stuff, and apparently her visual and physical equivalent of a diary. She's gone by different names in the part, but it's all her, dating back to hundreds of years ago. The handwriting is mostly the same, and so is the small samplings of "personality" one sees from casual browsing.

Edward Blanche is there, too. In fact, he's there a lot.

In pictures, paintings, and writing. There are books he's ostensibly written, symphonies he's composed, and letters they have written to each other. There is a constant air of obsession and antagonism in the way she records his exploits, like that of a life long rival, except with an extra air of almost fond obsession that comes across in the fact that she has apparently been scrapbooking their entire lives together.

What will Lapis focus on first?

[oceantier]

The small, blue bird at the vent's edge surveys the room with some trepidation. Even from this angle, Lapis can tell that this is a room to be hidden -- even without being able to see the subject matter of its contents yet. The lack of doors and windows certainly give away the fact that its owner does not intend it to be found . . . and indeed, given how small she's had to become to find her way in the first place, that owner likely isn't human -- or someone unlimited by the constraints of size.

She doesn't want to enter. This isn't the right place for her; it's not what she came looking for. This place is wrong, a tucked away, middle place neither here nor there in the heart of a massive building that almost pulses with stolen life. It feels wrong, it feels contained, it feels like a cage, artificial and suffocating.

Yet she knows she can't leave.

How could she pass this room, knowing it must be important enough to be hidden, and tell the others she left it behind?

She can't. She can't look them in the eyes and tell them that.

She perches at the edge of the uncovered shaft, trying to will herself the strength against the squeezing tightness in her chest. Closing her eyes, she releases, hops, herself again by the time she reaches the floor.

No immediate alarms, anyway. Good. Arms bracing around herself, she drifts to glance over her options, each one in turn: The collection. The diary. The computer.

Normally she would choose the computer; it's what she understands best, less used to spindly human handwriting. But she can't trust that the computer mainframe doesn't have some form of alarm. The collection is interesting too with its pictures, but . . .

In the end, she goes for the volumes of the diary. Drawing a tome at random from its place, giving a last glance back towards the vent, she pulls it open.

[interstellarnpcs]

There is a lot to sift through in the diaries, both from the large span of time covered by each volume and Lesedi's particularly distractable trains of thought. Lapis ends up selecting something from earlier in the series, however, which involves a lot of diagrams and doodles of something ostensibly occult - like some kind of placement of different ritual tools, or the like? The images are not incredible specific, and obviously created to serve only Lesedi's needs.

Sometimes she will talk about her "ascension" and Blanche's involvement in it. It's clearly what they are collecting the energy for - they are both up to numerous musical exploits, though the lower tech of the time seems to make to more difficult to get vast audiences. It's all leading up to something bigger, Lesedi assures her diary. Having entered this world before widespread technology, she will have the opportunity to shape its culture to her needs, right from its roots!

Having skipped out on all that rubbish about inventing fire and evolving enough to invent the piano, of course! Blech. Mammals.

She rants at great length about how other nebulae may laugh at her for settling in a place already inhabited by another of their kind, but they clearly just don't understand her genius. With two of them at it, they'll clearly create twice the energy - which will make it all the sweeter when she finally consumes Blanche's soul. "I will be a god among gods," are words she writes exactly.

She also takes this as an opportunity to write at great length about how horrible and fascinating Blanche is, or whatever identity he is taking at the time that is clearly him from all descriptions. He seems to have more of a legitimate interest in the creation of music than her, and has actually spent a significant amount of his time studying it. He is a fool. Any simple art form such as this should come to a nebulae naturally! They are already thousands of years old, after all, and dwarf this worlds civilization.

She writes about one particular instance of her and Blanche encountering in their "true forms" and swiftly delves into confusing purpose prose about his attempt to ostensibly kick her off the planet.

To someone of the right mind, it make come across as unavoidably erotic, the way she describes it. She seemed very excited indeed.

[oceantier]

Once upon a time, her people were like this.

In fact, from all accounts, they still are.

Take a planet to re-form, re-create according to whim, form it to suit one's purposes and use it for all that can be taken from it. Use it to build power, to spread. Obliterate the life, or twist it for purpose. Wipe out species, any species, that stands inconveniently present. Break it, grind it, blow it away. Life doesn't matter -- lives don't matter. Wash the bloody pulp from your hands and return to business as usual.

If there's any measure of Lapis that still believes in the Diamonds, it ends in the corrosive laughter, the disdain so plain in Lesedi's words as they lift from the page. She wants to hurl the book from her, rage, drown it and watch the pages dissolve, water eating the ink away from the woman's memories. Evidently this was all precious enough to write down, lock away, keep . . . for what purpose except to show off to oneself is unknown.

To watch it rot would be such a pleasure.

Only the fact that this information is here and can be used keeps the book in her hands. She studies it as best she can, trying to memorize everything she can decipher.

Including the things she'd rather not know at all.

The diagrams and doodles do catch her attention in particular . . . Frowning slightly, she leafs through the rest of the book, and when that fails to produce what she wants, carefully slides it back into place and goes hunting for anything similar that's recent.

[interstellarnpcs]

The diagrams seem to refer to some kind of spiritual energy sequences - they're hard to understand without the complete context. As Lapis moves on through the journals, she'll discover that the written journals seem to end somewhere around the 1950's... did she move to a different format?

She never gets the chance to check, because it's while she's bent over snooping through those books that Lesedi Santiago will soundlessly enter - only to make a soft sound of surprise at discovering that she's not alone. A look of surprise that swiftly twists into something malevolent.

"It's you," she says, wounded and victorious all at once.

[oceantier]

She'd made the mistake it was so easy to make: The mistake of getting absorbed, of finding that last bit of information. Each page had been a new puzzle -- one more bit of information to be tracked down and taken. She'd forgotten herself.

At the small, throaty, surprised sound, she knows what she's done. Eyes whisking behind her, she stumbles backward, sending a stack of books toppling to the floor, biting back a yelp. She grasps for a table's edge to keep herself upright, sliding behind the edge without thought -- as though it's any kind of effective barrier against who she now confronts.

Out of habit she feels for any water that may be around her, conscious that the only exit lies behind her enemy.

She stares back at Lesedi, eyes wide and dark.

[interstellarnpcs]

In a sudden movement, Lesedi strides towards her, swiping a hand as if to grab Lapis by the wrist. She doesn't look angry so much as she looks venomously pleased - not the kind of look anybody wants to be on the other side of.

[oceantier]

She's seen that look before, on someone else's face.

Lapis snatches her hand away, yanking back. Nearly she tumbles over another stack of books, but even as she scrabbles to avoid that, she hits the edge of another table, sending papers flying in all directions as she lands with abrupt punctuation on her bottom.

Even then she's determined to move -- or perhaps, at this point, that's just blind instinct, knowing what kind of fate this woman can impart. On hands and knees she scrambles, limbs twisting in a mad flurry to try to pull back under control, trying to get away.

CLANG!

A force hits one of the walls with the strength of a battering ram, ringing through the small space. Another strike follows it, with enough force for a bubbled dent.

The walls are metal; the water will never get to her. But she can't help but try, the impacts resounding like a dull bell.

[interstellarnpcs]

As Lapis starts to run away, it's like music is summoned up to follow her steps. At first it is a tense and shivering note of surprise and tension, but one that is quickly averted as Lesedi vanishes and reappears in front of her, cutting off her scrambling path. This time she gets Lapis's wrist and scoops her up - and now that the music has started, she'll find avoiding just following the movements almost impossible.

For the moment she can continue smashing her water against walls, but Lesedi already knows it won't accomplish anything.

"Why'd you run away?" she sings, softly at first, almost conversationally. "Don't you like my style?" She spin Lapis in a circle, and then presses her back to the wall with just a bit too much force. "Why don't you stay and play? I guarantee it's worth your while..."

[oceantier]

Suddenly, just as quickly as it began, it's over. There's a yelp, bitten off, as the woman so neatly appears in front of her, scooping her up off the floor, tugging her into the dance.

Why'd you run away?

Her mind shrieks, wrests like an animal in a trap. Those eyes on her -- she knows those eyes. She grapples for control of her own body, but it's as though it's no longer hers; it's only interested in the music, stepping into the flow of the dance, echoing the partner smiling into her face.

And then Lesedi pins her to the wall.

Mentally she shrieks, wrests again, and Lesedi can probably feel it under her hand -- the deep shivers that run through the Gem, the quick bursts of tightness in the muscles that indicate every other second Lapis is trying to break free. The water outside redoubles its efforts, lashing and hurling itself against the walls -- the scream its manipulator isn't able to voice.

Lapis herself stares back into Lesedi's face -- a mouse unable to look away from the hawk about to tear it apart.