Blooming From A Seed To A Tree (Project Moon Crossover Quest)

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As you aimlessly searched for a hotel to house you for the night, the evening chill crept in through your admittedly inadequate clothing. At first, it was something not exactly delightful, but new. The closest thing you felt to being cold within the Facility was the clamminess that emerged from a sweat-laden body. This was something different, natural in a way nothing in the Facility was.

Even as the chill turned to pain, the sensation passing a certain threshold within your body, you still did not find it disagreeable. Again, it differed from your past, limited experience, an odd heat underneath your skin as opposed to the thunder-like drumming of a migraine.

Rubbing your hands together for warmth, you pointedly ignored the stare of yet another passerby. It had taken you a little bit to connect the dots, but in your defence, neither Ayin's nor Tiphereth's memories were of much help to you here. All those stares and whispers were probably aimed your way because you look like a child.

It was strange. The general character of the City's populace insured that such a thing as even the most passing of compassion or concern felt, let alone shown, to a lost child were things of exceptional rarity. At least, if they were honest. Ulterior motives, extortion and betrayal were, in contrast, far more than plentiful. Which just went to further prove your first point.

Or so Ayin's memories informed you.

Tiphereth A, or Lisa, rather, had lived in the outskirts. There was no nugget of wisdom hidden in that hellscape, only monsters not even the City was willing to stomach.

Was there some sort of rule or taboo pertaining to children here to invite such attention? This seemed to be a Nest or an equivalent thereof, so sighting a child should not be a novel experience.

Your brows furrowed at your thoughts. You were no longer within the City, so relying on Ayin's memories to guide you was not what you could call a "winning strategy". Still, you lacked any other means of reference for the environment around you.

And there was another tangled feeling inside of you you needed to address. You even said it yourself already; you look like a child.

Your reason for choosing this form escapes you, however. Your final moments within the light were wholly dominated by the effort needed to reach the purple tear, the matter of your physical form an afterthought in comparison.

You would not dare insult Tiphereth A or yourself by calling your final decision a whim, but you could not deny that the fact of the matter was closer to that term in nature than a deliberately constructed and weighed choice. Still, if conscious thought and rash impulse were both equally incorrect, where did the answer lie?

While you were lost inside of your mind, one of your hands had come to lay on your chest, right above your heart. Ascribing any meaning to this unconscious movement was nonsensical and superstitious, supported by nothing but blind belief.

But, well.

That was it, was it not?

You could easily dismiss it and return your arm to hanging by your side, drawing yourself back into the confines of your mind to ponder your not-decision.

Or, you could stake your faith on… you do not know what exactly, but it is not as if you will lose much of anything by doing so.

And so, you considered it. At first, your mind blanked, with no concrete piece of information to attract its focus. Such was faith, you supposed; investing yourself into a thing without any assurance of its realization, but forging on nonetheless, spurned on by nothing but an underlying belief that whispers to you of greater causes.

It was all very abstract and not at the same time, making it quite difficult for you to put your finger on the reason for your listlessness.

Yet, once your frustration cleared from your head, the answer presented itself.

Superstition, which is what you already dubbed your current cognitive undertaking, is ultimately the act of an uncomprehending mind ascribing meaning and ritual to the happenings of the physical world in which it is placed.

It elicits a knee-jerk rejection from the more erudite, seeing as it seems to stand in opposition to the materialistic principles they may seek to embody. Of course, they may not be so erudite after all, if their reaction to knowledge and behaviour so apparently foreign to theirs is immediate ridicule and dismissal.

Ah, but you are veering off-topic.

Superstition is born into the world when possessed knowledge can not explain surrounding events. Its fantastical explanations merely describe what is unknown rather than something fundamentally incomprehensible. It simply fills in the otherwise empty space.

If you look at faith through this lens, and avoid the mistake of ascribing unnecessary symbolism to what you are analyzing, then you can use it as a guiding light to lead you in the direction of the answer you are seeking.

Therefore, there was a reason behind the movement of your arm and the placement of your hand. You simply had to bridge the gap between your lacking conscious understanding and the implicit promise of unconscious - oh. Oh.

You had answered your own question before you had even posed it in full.

Unconscious.

Subconscious.

One begets the other, and so your answer lies within.

The corners of your lips curl downwards at the thought, frustration much deeper than what prompted your internal inquiry flowing through your veins like quicksilver. Your self is shrouded to you, leaving you to blunder like a drunkard in a thick fog. It is the reason why you are here, the motivation behind your breaking of the Light's warm eggshell.

To realize that the reason for your choice of form lies behind the daunting fortress of your identity is not surprising. It still does not make walking in a circle like this anything less than deeply unpleasant.

You try to expel your frustration with a sigh, but you only waste your breath.

Though it leaves a sour note to play in the back of your mind, you pull yourself away from this trail of thought. You have just arrived in this world. Your answer is waiting for you, in the future. For now, you should focus on the present.