Nobody seemed to be getting much sleep, even the Phins were getting on one-another's nerves: Moka would have nightmares, and then sonar-project them into the tank, which meant that Kaa would share them. The supply of real coffee was also being burned through quickly. Yue and Hakeber couldn't be around each other for very long before some sort of emotional feedback loop developed, probably from Hakeber having Katha-hem flashbacks in her sleep. The Lapi were grumbling about the Eeee, who used their sonar to tell if one of their own hallucinations were real or not. The rabbits themselves either spent a lot of time on Dr. Knight's treadmill or in their room.
Lacci had taken her wearing her armor often and jumping at shadows, while Shojo spent time in the hangar when he knew nobody else was there. Modo would complain about his freshly made tools being bent and mangled afterwards, but then he could spend time focusing on fixing them until Shojo destroyed them again. Even Katie was having issues, and since most people didn't feel social enough to gather in the lounge, she wasn't performing. She spent a lot of time sitting with a pair of VR goggles on, presumably (hopefully) immersed in tranquil Terran scenery. Gabriel was soldiering on, but when he thought Tasha wasn't looking he'd go back to searching through the security feeds again, hunting phantoms.
The Belters either weren't as effected or weren't letting on that they were, which would be worse. Professor Stanislav obsessed over his silent detection equipment. It was getting harder to deny Dr. Amuntaton's offer to monitor the mass detector, so that they could didn't lose time in normal space while Kaa had to rest. Scholar Shiftless barely interacted with anyone anyway, but Tasha made sure to check that the big Naga hadn't died in his cabin or anything, given how seldom he moved.
For Tasha, it meant more pressure to keep people from completely unraveling while she was feeling frayed herself. Blackwings had made her presence known, but Tasha couldn't be sure if it was the old pirate's ghost or just her own mental breakdown. It was giving her a shorter fuse than usual, especially when the ghost would describe what she would do with Hakeber, Katie or Lacci - and oftentimes Tasha would see her, leering at her friends. It was worse when Liza was working with Tasha, because Blackwings apparently had recipes, and stories of why she always had at least one Lapi crewman aboard in case they got stranded.
Amuntaton hadn't really changed at all, still be oddly open and mysterious, and Sam just seemed to be a lot more sinister than usual. There was no way to know if the Jotoki were being affected, with their odd multiple-brain anatomy and need to keep hidden. So far the ones that were the most calming influences to Tasha were the Horse, and the still nameless hypership. Now that they were in really flat space, it would be time to let her out to exercise once they dropped out of hyperspace again.
And so Tasha finds herself in the second of her two quiet refuges these days: In the ship's core, leaning against the railing that surrounds the overhang placed beside the ship's core, or bridle, as those in the know have taken to calling it. The mysterious Tatha-hem, with her speaking-but-not speaking and gentle but dispondent ways has become a quiet and calming presence, a being who has endured ages of slavery and darkness a universe over. That such a being should be her point of relaxation is in itself not a good sign, she knows, but that's the way of things now. At least here. Blackwings seems less prone to showing up, perhaps concerned at her close proximity and friendliness with a darkness that eclipses the ghost's own.
The other refugee is a tried and true one: The Melchior. Tasha has taken to connecting it to the ship's systems, which allows her to immerse herself in VR simulations and learning aids as well as allow her to observe the entirety of the vessel in a kind of computer-linked multipresense. In this way she can speak to the increasingly large load of crumbling minds, often simultaneously, while also keeping an eye out for any disasters. She still meets with people in person, but with growing tensions she's decided a quiet observation is often preferable to appearing to be looming over everyone's shoulder, to say nothing of her own fraying nerves and chance at snapping.
All in all, she's become a bit of a ghost herself wanting to keep tabs on all while also not being seen. This keeps Blackwings even further away, and the connection to the ship gives her a sense of omnipresence and, more importantly, control.
The Horse seems livelier out here, away from all the turbulence of the galactic gravity well. If so, it is the only one enjoying this part of the journey. According to Gabriel, ancient Terran sailors crossing oceans would encounter times of no winds, where they could only drift. The doldrums. "It's like this. With no sign of land, just infinite blue water to the horizon.. men filled the emptiness with monsters," he explained.
"Well we're certainly doing that now," Tasha grumbles. Tatha-hem doesn't always speak to her, indeed, she's usually silent. It isn't something Tasha takes personally; she knows being ssuch as Tatha-hem see time differently, and after a few billion years she can't blame anything for not being in a rush. It's for that reason she isn't too worried about complaining openly here. Much like with the ships' cats, she can be close to a being in mutual appreciation without the need for communication or even understanding. Except here, beside Tatha-hem, she isn't sure just who the cat would be; perhaps her, perhaps both of them.
"Animals." It's what Thotep called the '-hems', something she thinks she understands a bit better now. Animals compared to something like Thotep, beings created for a purpose, with powers but not the intentions to grow a culture or spread. Individuals, smart tools. Not unlike herself, in a way. And, she did not want to think about Thotep right now. She hopes the others are okay, and aren't killing ecah other while she's not paying attention. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought them? I don't know."
The Horse is silent, unknowable. The Eeee knew the most about 'flat space' and its effects. Or at least Darksight did, and he has to be half-mad, or half-priest, or half-something that Tasha seems to be heading towards herself. Then she starts to hear it. It's not a whisper, not the sound the Void Demons make in her head. It's a rhythm, something not biological or mechanical though. And not quite a sound either. This close, with no other big masses to overwhelm it, Tasha might finally be hearing the Horse, or the ship itself, sing.
At first Tasha is suspicious. She's spent the last couple of weeks being tormented by demons within, the demons of others, and now and then by an actual demon whenever Samael is feeling extra-sinister that day. This new noise just seems like a new entry on a long list of potential insanities, a list that's been growing even before this trip. Yet, it's not unpleasant and isn't reminding her of her failures or dredging horrors old and new, no, it's just there, seemingly indifferent. She narrows her brow, listening, then wiggles down until she's laying on the deck with her hooves propped up on the door. There, she listens.
It could be a rhythmic representation of pi, or a higher-dimensional shadow of a mosquito's wings buzzing. Maybe it's a hologram, like the Phins create with their sonar, or the snores of some long forgotten deity. It's slippery and ephemeral, so that Tasha can't remember what she just heard, and if she tries it's difficult to find it again. But after a while, it feels like there's more than one voice involved.
The sound -- and she's sure it's not a sound at all but Nora's lengthy vocabulary never reached such dark places as this -- reminds her of the time she first 'spoke' to Tatha-hem, in itself not really a conversation in words even if words were involved. The more she tried to press it, the harder it became to hear. Going easy on anything has never been native to her way of thinking, and even though she finds herself changing such that it's become easier, it takes her time to come to the right mindset. The closest she knows is meditation, so she tries that. Still mind, breathing, listen but do not think, let the universe come to her, and along with it, the song.
No.
Songs?
It's impossible to separate the voices, and it only feels like different ones because they aren't in sync. Indeed, it might be the positive interference of them that she first noticed. There are several options for sources though. First is the Horse, since she's right there. Second is the hull of Dark Horse, as it ripples with waves of gravity. Third is the little ship below. Fourth and Fifth could Sam and the Other. And sixth, of course, could be some sort of brain parasite or space-madness.
Madness is always a possibility, but Tasha thinks this is a bit exotic even for her. She has known for some time that the metal of the ship, what Titanians call Hammermetal, sings in some way she doesn't understand and was never elaborated on. While she might be an 'honorary' Titanian, they large wolf-like beings are still secretive, even with her, and the metal and its means of talking are one of their holiest of secrets. They did tell her it is used to communicate, and she knows it's how the Horse is located as a beacon in space, so she decides the song must be the hull itself. That there seems to be another song makes her wonder if some other entity is trying to locate or 'ping' the vessel, or perhaps all the other metals are the source of the song. Maybe there isn't a difference between the song and how space-time is distirbed by ships that can warp it, after all the metal and Tatha-hem interact to warp space-time. It's all a bit over her head, but it passes the time to listen to and think on
.
During the musing, one of the voices seems to stop.. but she can feel something else. The Horse just started 'working' harder, as if in more of a hurry.
Tasha is hesitant to speak, as it might break her ability to even hear the voice-songs. Yet, she senses emergency, and she's learned to trust the instinct; better wrong than to let disaster fall out of fear of looking like a fool. "What is it, Tatha?" She thinks it as much as says it, having had some practice in the weird communication they share since the trip began. It also occurs to her to wonder, in that way of memories to crop up unbidden, that she too must have some sort of song if the crew of the Dainty Mauler can track her with their own metal impliments. That means that whatever is singing might also sense her. It makes no difference, ultimately; her or the ship, the danger is the same.
The Horse doesn't seem to be frightened, as much as Tasha can tell. It might be excited? Or some other state she can't imagine. There's just a sense that the Horse is try to go faster for some reason.
Tasha thinks on this, having her own mostly mortal selection of experiences to draw off: Why would a being go faster, if not due to danger? She thinks fo why she might fly faster. There's the fun of it, of course, and then there's competition. There's a need for urgency due to obligation or the desire to draw near something out of curiosity. She might to it out of boredom, to save time and shorten a journey. Yet, she can only guess. All she knows is it's probably not fear. With Tatha-hem apparently busy, the young woman decides to check on the ship and those sensitive to the elements the Horse might react to, and that means the baby and Sam, possibly Horus as well.
Since the horse doesn't seem like it's going to slow down (not that it seems like it's ever going to do something), there isn't a lot of reason to stay. At least the bridge should be able to tell if they've actually sped up.
"Bridge it is," Tasha mumrurs to herself. She pokes the lift button and steps on. If not the Bridge, then she can see if the baby ship is reacting.
Lacci is in the main corridor when Tasha reaches it, but is just leaning against a bulkhead support, and staring intently at a spot on the far wall.
At first Tasha walks right on by, intent about her business and, if she were being honest, not in the mood for more interpersonal fretting and snipping. It's only past Lacci that the nagging voice of responsibility jabbers in her skull, a whlly different kind of phantom voice that is lamentably her's and her's alone. She stops, cocks her head to the side, and asks, "Did that bulkhead do something? Want me to hit it, Lacci?"
"Shh, you'll scare it off," Lacci whispers, the clacking of her beak louder than her words.
"Yes we wouldn't want the bulkhead to run off, would we." Tasha rolls her eyes, but delays her trip a little longer to turn and see what Lacci is so intent upon.
There's nothing there, just the silver-white material of the wall. "One of the cats was staring at the spot," Lacci explains slowly. "Liza told me about the evil spirits Titanians say plague ships. Gremlins. The cat might have seen one, so I'm watching in case it comes out."
Or it could be Sam being Sam. "Well, er, you do that Lacci. Report in if the gremlin becomes a problem, don't let it, um, gremlinize anything." Tasha shakes her head, then keeps going. She really does hope she has a ship and a family left by the end of this trip.
The bridge is dark, save for the not-quite-visible glow of the mass detector. Gabriel is hunched in his seat, and if she focuses on the "psionic" sphere of the detector Tasha just sees a uniform, sparse haze. Gravitational static. Sounds of movement in water indicate at least one of the Phins is on duty.
"It's nice that we have this visual darkness to go with all our outter actual and inner metaphorical darkness. I think Sam calls that a Hand of Darkness, which wins at cards." Tasha wanders over beside Gabriel, whom she hopes is looking better than the last time she saw him. She leans over his chair, perking her ears and brows. "How's my big wolf?"
"Feeling small," Gabriel croaks. "It still gives me a headache to use this thing for any length of time," he notes. "Only now it's more of a mental static headache."
"Remember small things often go unnoticed. And also remember, even a light in a infinite void still has more interesting things going for it than the whole emptiness combined." It's something she came upon while thinking -- brooding really -- in the Melchior tied in to the ship's sensors. In an empty room, with one little candle, the candle seems small. Yet the candle is the only thing of interest and warmth in the blackness, no matter how small it is it is, in its way, bigger than the emptiness. That perhaps it's the darkness that is small.
Of course that only works if there's nothing in the darkness.
"A-aaanyway, did we suddenly start going faster a little while ago?"
"Faster?" Gabriel asks, and pulls himself up from his slouch to check things on his panel. "Slightly, yes. Maybe we've stumbled into a conduit?"
"The, uh, core doesn't seem ... stressed, so it's probbaly not an emergency. Probably. It is showing signs of acceleration, and I could, um, feel it. That, and a disturbance in the, uh ... 'field'. More than one field, but I can't tell what the other is or even if the field's are 'ours'." Tasha peers at Gabriel's face a moment, then decides decorum and Bridge Etiquette can step off the deck and so climbs over the chair and right in to Gabriel's lap. She settles back and looks up. "So, I'm not sure what it is. But I knew we accelerated."
"It's hard to tell anything without reference points," Gabriel says, and smiles, using Tasha as a reference point.. and glad she's blocking the view of the mass detector. "You're nicer to look at than the shadow of dark matter," he notes.
"I like to keep my darkness inside where it gives me ideas on how to tease Lacci." Not exactly a lie, but the suggestions some parts of her darkness have been giving her about Lacci have made her hackles raise. What's worse, she isn't exactly sure if it's that shadow of a woman that was, or her own subconcious imagination voicing a long-quiet cruel side. And not just cruel as she might have been, a level beyond. It's exactly what she'd rather not be thinking of when she's here to try and cheer Gabriel up -- so she forgoes words and just leans up to forcibly kiss him.
"There's an old, wise saying from the ancient history of Terra that comes to mind," Gabriel says. "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. I may be paraphrasing though."
This causes Tasha to cock her head, then to whisper exploratory ideas about the insides of canines and activities that might be done there. She ends with licking the man's muzzle, then wiggling around to face forward, grinning. She reaches her arms up and begins to rub his ears. "I'm sure we can get someone to cover if you need a break. Or if you want something boring like coffee, I can stare at the glow-globe. Glowbe? Glowbe."
"I have a mouth full of feathers now," Gabriel notes. "I may need some warm-up time, to get my head into the proper.. space." I'm sure Moka is good for a bit on her own. It's just a 'stop' button at this point, if something should suddenly appear out of nothing in our path."
"Well I'll just sit right here and keep you warm, then, until you're ready." The young woman drops her hands, then intertwines her fingers with Gabriel's. Part of her wants to talk about what's going on, the problems and her worries, but it's the first time Gabriel has perked up in days and she's not about to ruin it. She's begun to realize she can only help so many people at once, and worries she may not be able to cover all her friends and family, at least not simultaneously. And not wantinf to reflect on that further either, she pats the man's hands to an invisible beat and adds, "You know we don't have to go all the way to the Owner's Deck."
"Ohhh?" Gabriel asks. "The galley? Shuttle? The holo-table?"
"We don't have to settle for just one." Tasha wags her tail, which is largely pressed up against gabriel at the moment. "Or we could just save the time and do it right here." And that's definitely on the frownie-side of the Bridge Etiquette Handbook. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures, but no one ever said they had to all be unpleasant.
"I'm pretty sure the Lapis have been in here, somehow without being noticed," Gabriel says. "Or maybe I'm just smelling things that aren't there. Which really only gets the question: are you going to do a little dance for?"
"A little dance for you?" Tasha inquires, ears perking. She turns around, and makes no effort at all to limit the wiggling, until she's all but straddling the captain. She leans forward. "You want a dance?"
"I've always wanted a dance. The only one that seems to know how though is Liza," Gabriel says. "Which is a little disturbing."
"Oh, that kind of dance. Liza did used to be ... Well. That's for her to day." Tasha thinks about it for a moment, she knows what Gabriel wants but she's never actually done it herself. For all her experience, the more sophisticated and practiced forms were not someting she ever knew how to do, she was decidedly of the self-taught, backa-alley perfomance variety. But she does know, and she's seen it when around Blackwings, whom she then hurriedly tries to promptly forget. But not the dance. "Alright," she decide, " ... but no laughing if I'm not good at it." She then pulls off her Dark Horse jacket and tosses it across the deck on to the Navigator's Seat, currently unoccupied like most of the Bridge. "Now just lay back ... and watch." She winks. "I'd add 'look but don't touch', but you can touch, too. And should."
After the mandatory shower and trying to forget all the 'giggling' over doing something naughty, Tasha makes her way to the ventral bay. As soon as she enters, and before she can adjust to the zero-gravity, she catches movement near the middle of the hypership, as if something just moved around it out of view.
Still a bit out of it, Tasha blinks, then rubs her eyes as she begins sidestepping around the ship in a obvious clip-claping of hooves. "Aaanyone there? Ghosts, demons, ghost-demons? Demon-ghosts. Memetic lifeforms that represent spooky movements, spooky movements that represent memetic life forms. Floating coffee ... " The list goes on as she circles, not looking away.
After she's spoken for a bit, the culprit comes into view: Rainbow. The Jotoki have been hanging out the junior starship, apparently - but then, they're pretty well used to zero-gravity environments.
Tasha puts a hand on her hip, then tilts her head. "You don't have to hide from me, Rainbow. You know me, I'm not scary." It says something about herself that Tasha then has to think about her words, then rethink them. Even then she doesn't find her arguement entirely convincing, feeling that at some point between cadethood and now she's become less approachable on some nebulous level. "I didn't know you were here, though. You should tell us if you want to explore, just to be safe."
"Hide hide Hide from strangers strangers," the alien flutes from five different mouths.
"But I'm not a stranger." Tasha walks over, then tries to lower herslef a little so as not to seem looming. Not that she exactly looms, except perhaps over Lapi. Small Lapi. "Do the strangers scare you?"
"Told hide hide," Rainbow replies, clinging to wrinkles in the hypership's skin. "Hide. Was told hide. Know TashaTasha."
Tasha smiles; well, at least she's not scary. "Having fun with our baby ship, then? Do you know what she is?" She gestures towards the ship with a hand. "Our little ship can travel between the stars, just like this ship can, except she's just a little ship and hasn't had much experience with it yet. She'll get her chance very soon, though."
"Fish fish. Big fish," Rainbow claims, and sort of bobs up and down by flexing its knees.
The Jotoki perplex Tasha, sometimes. It's also very strange to no longer be the most primitive sentient in the group, by an ever increasing margin. She's used to being the wide-eyed barbarian, not explaining to them. It may be even more jarring then the Jotoki's alien physiology. "Yes she is sort of like a big fish, if you think of space like a sea. But unlike a fish, she's smart, and she understands us." And so the hybrid looks up and to the ship, ears perking. "Don't you?"
One of the ship's eyes is watching Tasha, but it doesn't reply in any obvious way. It certainly didn't seem to mind having the Jotok spidering around on its skin.
Another mysterious being, but Tasha doesn't mind. She'll take calm, quiet ships with their spirits over just about any other mystery any day of the ship cycle. After all, she grew up with the quiet motion and presence of a vessel. The ship gets patted, then she turns back to the Jotoki. "Would you like to see inside the ship? She's not very big yet, but eventually she might even be bigger than the Dark Horse." It should also let her try and sense if the ship has been disturbed, or is emitting a field.
"Inside now," Rainbow explains. Maybe she doesn't think Tasha is referring to the big fish.
Adopting a show rather than tell, as tell isn't really working, Tasha waves Rainbow to follow her and heads for where she remembers the entrance to be. Or hatch. Or airlock. She's not really sure how starship terms apply to a living ship. Orifice? The thought makes her want to giggle again, which really wouldn't help her trying to seem mature and educational. "A-ahem, this way." She feels around, trying to remember how Darksight did it.
There a fleshier spot beneath the carapace, and when Tasha tickles it the shell opens up. There's a short burst of moist air, noticeably in the chilly and dry bay.
Tasha blinks a few times, then shakes her head and wings out instinctively. "This way," she tells Rainbow, waving her along as she climbs inside.
It's a bit cramped, especially when one of them is a five-legged crab thing that easily outweighs Tasha.. something she's mindful of as Rainbow clambers over her. Parts of the interior light up from bioluminescent sacs and veins once they're inside.
"So this is the inside. We can't go anywhere, and I'm not actually sure how you pilot a bioship -- especially since I'm not an Eeee or Aquilian and can't even link to one -- but if I could and we culd go places, this is where we'd do it. The pilots will come down here soon to try a test run." Tasha realizes this is all probably over Rainbow's head, but she feels like she ought to say something, and that something should be educational. She has an obligation to teach and protect the Jotoki, to expose them to the universe.
"Squeaky pilot shares fish," Rainbow says. Then follows up with, "We are eaten?"
"Kaa is a good squeaky," Tasha agrees, even if Kaa has been very grumpy lately. Almost a thousand pounds of sonic shooting, stomping grumpy. "And no we're not eaten. This is a special place. It's just like how we can be in the Dark Horse and not be eaten. The Horse is not alive--" Not true, or maybe semi-sort-of-true, but she isn't about to try explaining that to poor Rainbow, "--and we can be inside it and not eaten. This ship is alive, and we're inside it, and not eaten. Same thing, because this living thing is made like the Horse is made: to carry people."
"Yes yes yes," Rainbow whistles. "Blowhole, not tummy."
"Yes that's right!" Tasha claps, glad her point got across. She was beginning to worry about her future as a teacher. "But also brain. We're like another brain, the ship has many, and when we're inside we become one more and help it think and make decisions. Where to go, what to do, what to eat and not to eat. It's even more important because the ship is still growing. She needs to learn many things."
"Lost leg brain?" Rainbow asks. The Jotoki are not sapient until five of them join together, after all. Losing a leg would mean losing a brain, which is probably not a pleasant thought for anyone.
"Nooo, more like ... " Tasha has to sitfor this one, propping her head on her hand in what she'd realize was a classic thinking pose if she knew what a classic thinking pose was. "More like ... Jotoki are five, right? Tasha is one, one brain. Ship is many brains, brains for thinking about doing brains for seeing, brains for flying, and room for more brains. Extra brains. Tasha can join with her Titan and be one being with two brains, five Jotoki join and become one being with five brains. The ship has many, but others can join with ship, and become one. When they leave, they're two again."
"Tasha just one brain?" Rainbow asks, possibly confused by the fact that Tasha has four limbs, not counting her wings, along with her head.. which might count as fifth if someone was really trying to do that.
"Just one. One brain is very common to Galactic society. All the current Galactic species have one, located ... " Tasha pokes a finger above and between her eyes, "Right here. Living space ships like this one need many more, because they have to think about a lot more than we do. They have to think about space, about flying, about the people in them and what they need, about where they're going and how to do what they need to do, and many other things. Flying in space needs a lot of brains, or a really smart brain. Computers are also like brains, and there can be many computer brains working together. My Titan Mel has one big brain, and when I connect to him, we have two brains, mine and his big one."
"Little brain fit into big brain," Rainbow replies, and taps Tasha's forehead with her green leg. "How do you think and move at same time with tiny brain? Do kittens have one brain brain?"
"I'm not really sure," Tasha admits, scratching her head and resisting the urge to move while her head is prodded. "I don't think we can do as much as Jotoki can. We can move and think and do, but not always all at once I can't paint with my left hand and use my datapad with my right without having to go back and forth, I bet you could. That's why ships have many brains, too, so they can do many things at once. A really smart brain can do many things at once, too. There are many kinds of brains, and they can be ver different in what they can do."
"Who has most brains?" Rainbow asks. It's hard to read a Jotok's lack of expression.. since they don't really have a face. But Tasha still gets the impression that Rainbow might be envisioning a giant Jotok made up of other Jotoki. A Jotoki god.
Tasha goes with that idea, plopping her head back down on her hand. "The smartest, brainiest person on the crew? Or the most amount of brains ... That would be the Niss."
"Big? Big big big?" Rainbow asks. "Big untasty-metal body?"
Tasha squints, then laughs. She, too, was surprised by the Niss upon meeting them, so surprised she was distinctly disturbed by the idea something so small could contain so much, be so old, and hold so much percieved power. It was very eye-opening, and her second encounter with truly 'alien alien's as Bumper put it. Except the Niss were much more comprehensible, less god-like, even anticlimactic in a way, which meant they hit her harder. "No very small. They learned how to make very smart brains, and then made them smaller and smaller. The Niss are the size of my head, but they have billions of brains. They have more brains than every Jotoki you ever met, and maybe who ever were, combined. And they all talk to each other. They're very hard to really understand, they're so smart and so different it's hard to know them as they know themselves."
"Pea-brains? But lots?" Rainbow asks. Inflection isn't quite there, so Tasha can't tell if it's an earnest question or a confused one, or who taught Rainbow what a pea was.
Tasha suspects it was Shojo while cooking, and hopes he's not currently destroying more tools. She'll have to check on him -- and everyone else. Suddenly the realization she's sitting and explaining brains seems less like a responsibile use of time, but it is responsible, and it's decidedly not interpersonal conflict, so she stays right where she is hiding in the spaceship with Rainbow. "Very small. Maybe smaller than you or I can see. But lots. Lots and lots and lots, then more lots. And more, all the time. If you like I'll let you meet them, but they can be hard to talk to. They're very smart. Very old."
"Are they nice nice?" Rainbow asks. "Not things that walk behind the walls?"
"They are very nice. Tasha saved them when their ship was going to be destroyed, the Niss and Tasha are friends. You're my friend, so they should want to be your friend too. But they are old, and don't like to talk much. We're very different." Tasha then frowns a little, head cocking to the other side. "Walk behind walls ... Do you mean Sam? Has Sam been mean?"
"Sam? Sam sam SAM?" Rainbow asks. "How many brains?"
"He ... " The young bipedal woman's brows furrow, then knit. She has no idea how many brains Samael has, if he even has one, or if he isn't just one big brain in the same way he's a metamoprhic projection of a mixed dimensional being. What's worse, she has no idea how to explain any of that. "I ... I don't know, actually! He may be one big brain, all brain. He can change his shape. Sam is very different from us. Sam is from another universe."
"Why?" Rainbow asks.
"Errrrm." Why Samael. It strikes Tasha, much as this conversation seems to strike her a lot, that she isn't exactly sure why Samael is in this universe. From what he said and she's gathered, it's to do Thotep's bidding as a servant ... or slave. An agent. An agent of chaos and discord, and whatever else Thotep wants and stands for. Nothing good, as far as Tasha has seen. She wouldn't have worked with him at all except ought of a need to deal with a problem far beyond her, the complexities of interuniversal politics, and as much she's loathe to admit it a bit of childish stubborness when faced with Horus. "WELL. You see, Sam is ... do you know what a demon is, Rainbow?"
"Bad fish?" the Jotok offers.
"Demons are ... They're bitey fish. And many can seem mean. Even cruel. But they're not all mean and they're not all cruel, just like how not-bitey fish can still be mean. How do I explain it, uh ... " Tasha runs a hand back through her hair, looking up. "Demons are made of bad, but they don't have to be bad. Maybe there are more bad ones than good ones, but they're not all bad. Samael is less bad than many. But he works for a big demon, very big brain, very scary and bad, and he must obey that demon. He doesn't like it, but he has to."
"Good but made of bad," Rainbow says, and seems to literally chew over the concept, as her knee-mouths seem to be grinding away. "Can't eat that."
"Yeah, I bite him once and it did not go well at all," Tasha says, making a gagging motion afterwards. She shakes her head, looking around. "Anyway, he's got his own problems. Even our little ship has something to think on." The ship's inner wall gets a pat, then the young woman awkwardly starts to ride, hunching and twisting to avoid bumping in to Rainbow. "But we'd better get out of here, the Confederates won't like us -- well, me -- wandering around the ship for too long and I'm afraid to be out of touch with the crew too long. Everyone's been grumpy."
"Can I be grumpy?" Rainbow flutes. "Is it fun?" The Jotok has less of a challenge getting out, despite being bigger.
The Jotoki gets patted too. Tasha's not exactly sure where to pat Rainbow, afraid of making some faux pas, but she ends up deciding to go with the motion in the spirit of things and pats above one of the knee-mouths. It's the cloest thing to a head-equivilent she can guess at. "No, Rainbow. Being grumpy is not fun; being grumpy means you are not having fun and you can't hide it."
Once out, Tasha stretches her back and wings, then her neck side-to-side. "Well that was fun. Maybe I should try teaching more? Well, you should keep out of sight Rainbow. Remember that the little ship can see you, too, but it won't tell anyone -- I hope." She really does hope so, having to decide what to do about a breach of the Jotoki secret is not a worry she wants and, whatever happens, she fears the end result will be a problem if not grim indeed. "Will you be OK?"
"I can be Rainbow," Rainbow offers.
"That's good enough for me." The Jotoki gives Rainbow another pat, wondering why she never spent more time with her and then remembering it's because she has a universe to save and a crew full of people who need her attention, then there's the simple fact that she shouldn't be bringing attention to the Jotoki. "I'm off. Remember, secret, secret!"
Tasha finds a rare gathering of people in the lounge. Shiftless has actually left his room, and coiled in one corner near the piano. Sam is playing the instrument, while Katie lies across one of the couches, one leg thrown over the arm and swaying in time to nothing. Hakeber is at the bar, doing something on her tablet that seems to draw all of her attention, and Yue is laying face down on a different couch, stripped to her panties while Liza straddles her back and seems to be giving her a massage. "Any requests?" the demonic piano player asks Tasha when she arrives.
"Something uplifting," Tasha replies, taking a quick look around and feeling a spike of fear as old and new worries rear their ugly head. She's tried to avoid Hakeber and Katherine. It's Blackwing's semi-constant suggestion-and-commentary barrage certainly, the quality of which ranges from the lewd to the outright hackle-raising, which the hybrid still can't be sure it is Blackwing's tattered remains or some grim and shameful part of her own mind. Yet, she's afraid of Katherine's ire just as the older woman has always slightly intimidated her when they're not perfectly getting alone, while she's afraid of somehow making Hakeber's own problems worse through her own weakness. The latter problem she learned to fear the hard way, back on Abaddon after Hakeber was first infected.
So Tasha sits with Sam at the piano, trying not to seem like she's hiding behind him. "So, how are things?" She whispers, hoping the playing will hide her investigations.
"Uplifting.. uplifting.." Sam mutters. "Very tricky, uplifting. I know a few funeral dirges. The big Celestial hasn't tried to eat anyone yet, and seems content to be furniture that occasionally blinks. Professor Stan is either practicing lectures or arguing with himself or someone imaginary in his cabin. Modo and Shojo still seem intent on haunting one another, the Belters are 'bumping skinny' all the time, if I have the slang correct. The Eeee are monitoring their equipment, studying hyperspace and such. Dr. Creepy Eyes is off.. somewhere."
"He's certainly an interesting presence. I'm not sure if I'm scared of him, exactly, but he's ... a presence. He doesn't make me think 'threat', even if I feel like he has the capacity to be." Tasha leans just enough to peer beyond the man -- or man-like entity -- and peers at Katherine, then Hakeber. "I really should go and say something, they've probably noticed I've been avoiding them. Well, at least Shojo and Modo have found a way to entertain each other's insanities, so that's one pair down."
"I think Lightfoot has drowned himself in your tub," Samael notes, and gives a cheerful little flurry of fingers over the keys. "Probably not though."
"Lightfoot can't be killed by mere water. No matter how worn and world-wary he looks, he won't die that easily." Tasha glances around again, then after a deep breath and an exhale, moves to stand. "Well here I go. Wish me luck, or fewer curses, or whatever your kind does in these cases." She gives the demon a pat on the arm, both as a show of brother-sister camraderie for the others and because she means it.
After a short walk, Tasha summarily dumps herself on to the edge of the couch Katie's sitting on and gives her biggest, most winnging smile. "Hiii Kaaatie."
"Why are you so cheerful?" Katie asks. "Jonas says I have 'VR-tigo' and can't use the system again for at least forty hours. I feel tense. Do you know, this is the longest I've ever been on a.. voyage? Not a lot of places to go back home, and you could always stop and run around. I'm not trained for this."
The reprimand makes Tasha's ears immediately flatten, and her smile turns a bit brittle. "Well, no one is trained for this except a small few members of each Galactic empire and they're not usually considered very normal." She chews her lip a moment, then tilts her head. "Part of the challenge of our duties here are coping with the difficulty of the unknown. This is a large part of what I do out here. Do you ... " And here's the crux, the thing the hybrid had been fearing to ask. Better to get it over and done with, to move on to damage control, or at least she keeps telling herself it is. "Do you regret coming out here with me? I mean, when we get back, I could arrange for you to return if, um, that's what you want?"
"What?" Katie asks, her demeanor changing. "No, I don't regret it. It's just this.." And here she makes vague hand gestures at the air. "It's like the dive into Ergo-hem. All that pressure. There's nothing out there, but I feel like I'm being smothered by it. Why? What's happening to us? I want to bite the problem."
"I've been told it's not what's out there, but what's in here." The winged woman reaches up and taps the side of her head, her smile dropping away completely now as she takes a more serious cast. "There's nothing here to distract us, nothing here to keep us out of ourselves, nothing here to engage us. That only leaves us, but we're not used to being around ourselves this much. Not so completely. Sam calls them Void Demons, we fill the void with ourselves, except we don't exactly like ourselves as much as we assume we do. Or, in my case, I hated myself." nd so she shrugs a little. "It's not a problem we're facing, it's a lack of problem, and the enemy we're feeling is ourselves. Well. Probably just ourselves, for the more normal people. Maybe less so for some of us. But see, attacking ourselves just means we get injured, so you lose both ways on the attack."
"At least we aren't going paranoid about one another.." As soon as Katie says it, though, she raises her head and looks around the lounge. "Lacci keeps her armor on all the time now. I wonder if she's sleeping in it. Maybe she needs a roommate."
"Not it," Yue mutters from the next couch over.
Tasha squints at Yue, whom she suspects has some sort of TerraGens responsibility dodging training -- and she wants it. "Welll, are you volunteering? Lacci's mostly harmless, she's just afraid and she's using her armor as a piece of home and comfort. Something to hide in. I'm just afraid she's going to hide so much she'll turn in on herself, which is bad normally but out here it could lead to serious problems."
"Hmm, I haven't actually spent much time with her yet, so.. maybe I will approach her about it," Katie says. "It'll mean you and Gabe will be all alone in your bed though."
"I'm sure Gabe will manage somehow," the hybrid remarks with a laugh. She leans in and whispers, "When the Bridge was mostly empty we did it right there on the Command Chair. He wants me to ask Liza how to dance in his lap, I think I will. It also means I owe you something like it. Keep that in mind." And then she leans back and she's smiling again. "But please do ask her. I know we kind of clack beaks, but I'm worried about Lacci. I'd feel bad if something happened to her." Especially if it was my fault. It's another reason Tasha's avoided Lacci, because while she'd never hurt Hakeber and Katie, Lacci's a bit different. She doesn't trust the nasty inner voice that's been hounding her not to use that, to her regret.
"It's too bad Shojo is too self-conscious, otherwise they could keep one another company," Katie notes, then stretches and swings her leg off the arm so she can stand up. "I'll go check on her, in case she's started meowing or something."
"Yeah remind her the meowing is solely the property of Khattan Vartans. I'd have to fine her or something." Tasha scoots out of the way so Katherine can get up, then stands herself. Well that's handled. On to ... She looks around, spotting Hakeber at the counter. Hake-bear. She decides not to give Katie a show of affection as she leaves, deciding she wants her personal space right now, and so just walks right over to the short Karnor.
"Something interesting, Hake-bear?" This time Tasha tries the tact of interest with a twist of seriousness, as cheeriness seems to have been left at the dock.
"Mmmm," Hakeber says. Her tablet is covered in bizarre (and possibly nonsensical) calculations. "Just.. doing a budget.." she mutters.
"Saving up for something," Tasha inquires as she slides on to one of the stools, propping her head up on her hands. "Or is this like a mass or Delta-V budget?"
"Booze budget," Hakeber notes.. even though she hasn't really been drinking so far on this voyage. "Noting how much each person drinks, figuring out their average.. who should be sacrificed to ensure enough is left for the rest of the voyage.."
While this does sound like a very Hakeber-like activity, Tasha does wonder at the obsessiveness of it. Liquor managemend has largely been handled by the very capable Mr. Invention and by Liza, two people she trusts to get their housekeeping numbers right. "Hake," she whispers, lowering her voice, " ... isn't this just a way to distract yourself from you-know-what? You can talk to me, I have something similiar and it's not like I'm not familiar with the cause."
"Numbers are hard," Hakeber claims. "Can't have sex all the time. Can't think about yellow. Too much yellow everywhere. Need to get my eyes checked. Can we make a still with parts from the shuttlecraft?"
"Uh. Yellow, huh." Tasha glances around, then leans in. "Did you look at the artifact I had back then, the weird looking Origin Marker? Because yellow is a certain someone's favorite color and if he's after you I need to know about it."
Hakeber turns to look Tasha in the eye. "Your eyes, your hair, the soup, my pee.. yellow everywhere. The kittens have yellow eyes too. Hunters eyes." Hakeber also has yellow-ish tints in her eyes, but that's probably because Karnors tend to have blends of blue and yellow.
Tasha frowns at this, knowing full well how the Yellow Sign works and what the desired end result of exposure typically is. She evn understands, to a point, the idea of the pure conceptual yellow, as taught to her by Horus himself. "Yes yellow is everywhere, but it's not the color you see that worries me. Hake, what's eating you? It can't be a sudden obession with yellow, or, well, probably isn't, there's something more going on with you. Tell me. Are you seeing symbols? Is it something else?"
"It's like a wall," Hakeber says. "In my mind. A yellow wall, trying block off.. that. Or.. no, not really. A wall that.." The scholar seems at a loss for words. "A wall that's searching, trying to ooze into places I'm not aware.. well, I am aware of, but don't know what's in them. I'm surprised Sam hasn't tried yet."
"Oh wait, no, I'm not surprised," she says, with a look of realization.
"So he's trying to get in too." This is news, and not of the good kind. Tasha wonders if Hastur is somehow trying to use Hakeber's corruption as a back door in to her mind, and from there in to what they're doing here. She wouldn't past any of Hastur's ilk to do it simply because it drives someone insane, or causes them misfortune, or any number of other negative outcomes but it strikes her as more than a little petty to waste such an infiltration on something so basic. No, she suspects there's more to it than that. "Because Sam's already here to watch? Because he doesn't need eyes, he has his own, and myabe his master has them too?"
"No, because we're the same," Hakeber says, and glances at the ivory-tickling demon. "Weapons. But I'm an insider weapon, I guess. The ones opposing the Ogdoad would want that, right? Even if they're also opposing each other."
"That's a surprisingly, uh, lucid realization of your role in this." And an alarming one, though hardly a that much of a surprise given Tasha didn't exactly think Hakeber was infected for altruistic purposes. The -hems are tools, and their take overs of others would necessitate the same goals and strategies. She's been trying to figure out exactly what Hakeber is being used for, both to find a way to unravel the control and to be ready for whatever devestation it may befall her and her's. Samael's in the same lot, an ally who may become an unwitting -- or not -- enemy at any time. "But you're influenced by one of the Ogdoad's servants, so Hastur would oppose them even if they're not immediately harmful to any of us. He told me himself, he doesn't have a choice in perfoming his role as a weapon. None of them do. Hastur may have his own goals, but if he's aware of any plot to use you that interferes with his goals or furthers the greater goals of the Ogoad, he might act. Any of them might."
"Yeah, swell, I don't even know what my own goals are half the time, much less those of inscrutable demon-gods," Hakeber notes. "But, I can tell you who has been drinking more than when we started out at least."
"Leave them to me. I'll figure this out, Hake, and if they hurt you I will make them pay. God or not." Tasha looks Hakeber in the eyes, raising her brows and seeing if the other woman understands. "Now, who has been drinking the most? Is it the cats?"
"Professor Stan," Hakeber says. "First, it was just when we were talking about his favorite subject, but he's noticed how we're all reacting, and it's eating away at his notion that Starseeds might be sapient beings. It's hard to think of sapience surviving long out here."
"Maybe he just hasn't had a lot of exposure to more unusual forms of sapience. Outsiders do just fine out here," Tasha notes, tilting her head on her hands. "But maybe that's not much of a comfort, either. It's hard to have faith in something and then realize it might be a conspiracy to hurt you, or worse, it always was meant to use you and you just never realized it."
"Eh, that's post-graduate stuff," Hakeber says. "Life-long academics don't live in the real world."
"Is that so?" It's not exactly like Tasha has spent a lot of time around academics, for the most part they've lived in completely different worlds, social circles, and income brackets. She always found them a bit intimidating in their knowledge and skill, and yet strangely incapable in many other areas. The price of specialization, she supposes. "Well, I'll keep an eye on him. If he loses his mind, I'll try and talk to him about the big picture, and if that fails we may have to sedate him. Speaking of which, I want you to socialize more, Hake, and keep me and Gabriel informed about anything unusual that happens to you. We might not be able to stop it, but we can try to manage it, maybe even do somehting about it in time."
"I have been.. well, talking to the academics.." Hakeber says, and frowns. "Well, Professor Stan and Dr. Tater. Well, that's just my name for him, because Amuntaton sounds weird on my tongue."
"Sam and I call him. Dr. Creepy Eyes, or Dr. Eyes." Tasha grins a little bit. "But we think he's something else, a Power of some kind. I don't think he's dangerous, not actively, but he's here for something and we don't know what. Maybe they're all here for something, and I don't know what. Whatever's up at the Halo, it has a lot of powerful beings interested." After biting her lip, she exhales in a pained sort of way. "I guess we'll find out. Alright, Hake, keep my informed and don't be by yourself too much. I need to go make my rounds and check on everyone again, and remember the ship can reach me anywhere if it really needs to."
It isn't difficult to go from monitor duty in Melchior to the deeper level.. the difficulty was in doing it when Dr. Amuntaton wasn't around. Tasha has no way of knowing if her conversations of Horus can be detected by esoteric entities. Once again she finds herself in the Sea without Lees.
"Here standeth the Bird of Hermes," Tasha recites from memory, the poem long having been burned in to her mind in more way than one. She looks around for a moment, and for once finds the expansive grid-plane to be comfortingly sufficent in content. Compared to flat space, it's positively crowded.
"Are you there, maker number one? Answer: "I am always here."" The young woman does the last part with her voice low and deep, as a god might be.
"What do I say next?" Horus asks, suddenly just there.
Tasha jumps a little, her feathers and fur puffing out more than a little. "Well. Uh. You mean after "What do I say next?". Most people would say, "very funny," or, "could you be less irreverent or less facecious or could you please take this seriously," or if that's not your cup of tea, you could just stare at me or ask, "Why have you come?" in a forcifully somber sort of way, so I feel bad."
"I thought you were doing a play," Horus says. "So.. why have you come?"
"Going with the feel bad choice, I see." Tasha sighs rather melodramatically, running a hand through her hair. "That has been most people's favorite choice on this awful trip. You leave prt for more than a little while and everyone loses their mind. Well, okay, it's flat space but still. I;d make a joke about flatlanders but, ehh, flat space." And so she shrugs; what can you do? "Well, lets get to it then: We're heading to the Galactic Halo to investigate Star Seeds. I thought this would be a nice, exotic, and hopefully hem-devoid trip to somewhere interesting that would get our name in boring scientific reviews, but as it turns out, there's the very real possibility Thotep, Hastur, at least one Hem and therefore the Ogoad, and a completely unknown other Power are all paying attention to this trip. Hake-bear's usually possessed, but it seems like Hastur's trying to piggy-back that. Sam's for Thotep, and then there's Doctor Eyes, uh, Dr. Amuntaton who Sam and I are positive is some sort of Power. We
're not sure what he wants, or any of them do."
"Do you know what you want?" Horus asks. "Hastur. There is a name I have not heard in a long while. I was under the impression he had been banished from this reality. Describe this Dr. Amuntaton, please."
"I want to not have my universe eaten, I'm still working out the other parts. A lot depends on the options I find, and, well, it's complicated." Tashs then spreads her hands. "I'm still figuring it out. I've been so busy helping everyone else I haven't had time to think about myself." Her head shakes, then she steps aside and begins making measurements by gesture. "Dr. Amuntaton is, um, he's this bird-headed cyborg. He looks a lot like a Vartan but without wings, I've been told he's very old and he travels a lot. A sociological researcher and investigator of cultures. He looks like he's been through a lot, and he has these eyes that seem to look right through you. Maybe they can look through you, all of you. Sam's afraid of him. His helmet-head-thing is like ... Like a Vartan but kind of skinnier, with this smooth-backed rear section that's definitely not a Vartan style I know of. He's quiet and intellectual, but he has this presence. I don't feel he's hostile, either, but I do feel an
increasing sense that he's a lot less harmless than he seems if he decided to act."
"A researcher," Horus says. "He hasn't changed much then. Does he still travel was a Celestial?"
Tasha arches her brows. "You know who he is? And yes, he travels with this old serpent who appears to be asleep half the time, or, uh, dead."
"He always has one with him, to balance things," Horus says. "He could never choose between me or Ahriman."
"You or ... " Tasha's jaw stops right where it is, her ears shoot up again, and then so does her tail as she leans forward. It takes her a moment to get her face to work again, and quite a bit longer to shake the chill along her spine. "You or Ahriman? You don't mean to say he's ..?"
"Thoth, our offspring," Horus confirms. "Demi-God of Knowledge, and whatever other titles he managed to collect and shed."
"Ahh!" Goes Tasha, which comes off as more of a help than a cry of understanding. She licks her lips a moment and then begins pacing in a rough circle, running her hands through her hair. "You don't think I ... I mean I didn't ... did I? I wasn't trying--" And then she stops herself, not exactly hyperventilating as the system won't allow it, but certainly breathing very quickly. "I ... Do, do you think ... Uh, did I look stupid?" It's not exactly what she means, but she still turns to regard Horus with a plaintive, ears out look, searching for an answer and afraid to hear it.
"I don't understand the question," Horus admits. "What event are you referring to?"
Tasha makes a frustered noise, then she drops back even as a featurless blob of a chair rises to meet her. She folds her legs and her arms, looking up. "The first time I met him I kind of stumbled. I mena, there were all these scholars and I'm not exactly the academic type. I'm terrible with lectures and I left college to do, uh, this." She gestures in a small circle with her taloned hand. "Hake's sometimes over my head, and here she was with all her new academic friends, and then they start asking me questions. I thought I did well, maybe okay, I mean I do have actual, factual knowledge of a lot of obscure and important secrets, I don't need to speculate or research because it's right there."
After a deep breath, Tasha continues. "So okay, that was that. Then I meet him in the ship, infront of Mel, who is a big statue of you basically. We start talking about fathers and makers, and now it seems like we were both talking about you and your experiences without even realizing it. Or, maybe he does know all about me, and he was playing along? Ehh, either way, I admited I was the only one of my kind -- kind of blowing the whole Samael disguise in the process -- and then we started talking about that, and I rmemebered all you said, and what happened to the other Progenitors, to the Humans and Karnor, and others besides and I started to worry about how things might go. I mena, I'd be the first, like you in a way, and am I even a great first? What if they decide I can create fire with my mind, move galaxies, and strange demon gods with wings or something? What if they hate me, or try to kill me? And won't they just go through what everyone else has, won't I just be repeating the same old
Tasha drops her head in to her hands, suddenly feeling the weight of the universe on her shoulders, as if the statue of Horus fell on them. Between the stress lately and Blackwings, she's not exactly feeling resilient nor terribly good about herself, it's been exhausting, and ages if strife are a lot for even great minds like Horus to look upon. "I mean, there he is, and I just ... I said those things about the whole thing, right infront of him."
story..?"
"And?" Horus asks. "People bond over common shared experiences. This is normal. He did not introduce himself to you, so either did not want to be known, or was taking by surprise and was wondering how much you knew about him. Ignorance is not always genuine, and when you have seen so many people over the ages, it gets harder to think that anyone is genuine. He may have thought you were baiting him, or wearing a mask. Paranoia is not uncommon in immortal beings. And while Thoth is likely not truly immortal, he is certainly very old."
Tasha pulls her head out of her hands to look up and listen. She does brighten somewhat by the end of the explaination, nodding slowly. "I see, I think. It's still hard for me to understand beings as old as the both of you are. I've been linked to the minds of machines, and seen the Hall of Souls, old worlds and dead fleets, the Way, but it's always like it's just the tip of something immense I can't know. Maybe I'll never know, and if I did, I'd have to be just as old." She takes a breath and exhales again, far less raggedly, and sits up. "Well, I was wearing a mask, but not for him exactly. I have to be careful, being open out here could mean the end of us, the Niss, the Jotoki, or even Abaddon and Sinai's cultures and freedoms. Maybe the end of all of us. I'm playing an old game with old players and I'm the youngest one on the board."
"The advantage of old players is that they don't usually care about exposing secrets, so much as collecting them and favors," Horus claims. "There comes a point where influence is worth more than direct power."
"I ... think I understand. It's like with the Khattans, they have their mighty fleets, but their influence and their money does more for them than the military and even industrial power they have. The Imperials have that, too, but they're not as good with managing their influence because they're not as good with other species." Again the hybrid nods, thinking it all over. "Where as I want to learn the secrets and I understand direct power because it's the most simple form. Do you think Atum contacted Thoth? Have you spoken with him yet?"
"Thoth isn't like the Vril-ya," Horus explains. "He is.. to us as the Ogdru-hem are to the Ogdoad. Something part of two realities. He was meant to be a bridge between us and those we shepherded."
"So you just sort of left him to do his thing for all these years and never once spoke to him? I mean, you speak to me and I'm a tier below him. Maybe even two, I'm the product of of the sheparded, the, uh, sheep." She then refolds her arms, leaning back and cocking her head to the side. "You should speak to him. If I picked up anything from him, it was a sadness. A kind of longing or loneliness, he's always been trying to live up to you -- Ahriman too I'm sure. I never met Ahriman, but from what I heard he'd be even more remote. And look at you and me, we talk. I spoke to Atum and the Waymakers! I speak to Thotep, I speak to Hastur. Maybe the barriers between us aren't that bad, or am I special or something?"
"So this is something that offspring require?" Horus asks. "I'm just a fragment, diminished and powerless. What does he want from me? He has outlived me, and no doubt understands things I could not comprehend."
"He just wants to be near you. Don't you understand? Maybe you don't, but if he's like, well, us -- Vartans and Celestials. Like me, he'll just be happy to meet you again. Maybe he'll be proud he was able to exceed you somehow, or that he's gone so far. Maybe he has questions only you can answer. Maybe he wants to help you, out of obligation or gratitude -- or family. These are all things I feel, too." Tasha spreads her hands. "You're closer to us than any Vril-ya I know. Naybe you can understand, or maybe you don't need to. And if you can't, that's why I'm here, to help you understand and to understand you in return. Speak to him. If you want, I'll be here, too. I'll try and help you understand. We can work towards the future together."
"How would this be accomplished, since only you can reach me?" Horus asks. "Thoth may know of a way, however."
"Uh, maybe I can speak for you? Maybe the system will allow me to be half-here and half-awake, with Mel's help I should be able to speak, or you can just do your ... touchy-magic and borrow me for a little while?" Tasha shrugs, eyes a little wide. "I'm not exactly sure what power the Vril-ya possess, even small fragments or hybrids. I am willing to approach him and discuss everything, that should be easy enough."
"So long as you can do it in private," Horus notes.
"That might be tricky. Unlike you two, or even Sam, I can't detect when the powers-that-be are spying on me. I can barely feel anything when you lot are doing ... whatever it is that you do unless it's really obvious and you're trying to show me. I can barely even hear Tatha-hem sing -- if that's her -- and she's somehow connected to my soul." The young woman makes an expansive gesture somewhere between a shrug and a tossing everything over her shoulders move; look, I'm pitifully mortal. "I'd have to take Thoth's word on it unless you can, I don't know, help me detect them or something. Like what you did with the skin-gremlins? I should have asked the Waymakers for a god scanner or something. Hindsight!"
"Detecting things that are not wholly a part of your reality is necessarily problematical," Horus notes. "It goes both ways, however. My kind are not always aware of everything that is happening around us in your reality. Thoth should be at least as aware as you are though, if not due to his nature than to experience."
"I'lllll, uh, see what we can do then. I'll ask the Niss to keep an eye out, maybe bring him to the Titan where I also have Mel's senses to help me with this-universe detection. His advanced mind will help me process data. Uh. I'll notify Gabriel, and not notify Hake-bear and Sam. Tatha-hem might know, but I don't think she can tell anyone, anymore. I feel bad for her. Um. Actually ... " Tasha tilts her head, resting her hands in her lap. "Do you think this Titan can step outside while we're in the Maelstrom? Unless they're sensing us remotely, it'll be really obvious if they try and interact with us there. Is the Maelstrom hostile to matter, is it dangerous outside the field? I really should read about this more."