Not to sound like a broken record, but poor Hana!
Really, Mir? You're still keeping that joke alive?
was
Song in the Fog: Da Capo (Ar Tonelico, Metroid AU, Arpeggio of Blue Steel)
- Thread starter Einsig
- Start date
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
It should be noted, this is indeed really weird for a pair of Fog cruisers.
Those two are expys of Asahi and Yonaga from Alice & Zouroku. Which doesn't add a crossover; their personalities just happened to fit really well in the slot I'd prepared, so I went with it. They're light cruisers.
As to A&Z, I feel I must say... If you're reading and enjoying this, and you haven't watched that series, you must. It's perfect. And I don't say that lightly; it's the best anime I've seen in... Since I can remember.
...*sigh*. Shurelia, you need to get that looked at.
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Who would even be able to do anything about it?
Everyone with the proper authorization to do that is dead, the required facilities probably don't exist anymore, and even if the right credentials and facilities were available, who would actually know how to do it? Sasha?
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Someone who's not a Reyvateil, but still an AI. The trust issues are severe, though. You couldn't ask a random Fog unit to do it, even if Iona or Musashi might be perfectly capable of fixing her problems.
The only person I think might fit the bill, even potentially, is Hana. And Hana, right now, is nowhere near experienced enough to make the attempt.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
I'd give her decent odds of succeeding, considering her achievements in AT2 & 3. With all three tower communicating post-AT3 they won't be in a tech slump anymore anyway, and iirc the third tower never had one to begin with.
This chapter was, as Einsig said, pretty sad. I commend him on how he's captured the behaviour of a kid, and their internal phrasing of the various murky emotions they're feeling. Fuzzy indeed.
Gotta wonder who the birdman looking over the crash site is. What's he hunting for?
Doesn't fixing that require screwing with her HD-Cellophane? I've always assumed that her clumsiness and lack of sense of direction were personality quirks that remained because the First Era engineers couldn't manage to create a completely perfect personality and eventually settled on one with the least counterproductive bugs.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
I think it was a programming bug from a faulty map module, canonically. Which never got fixed because the apocalypse happened first.
Actually, all of Shurelia's problems stem from a failed update that was supposed to endow her with full knowledge about the Tower's geography. There were patches in planning to fix that, but as Mizu said, the Inferia threw that into the trash.
And while I have ideas for a funny scene where Shurelia runs away when Sasha suggests fixing her (much to the chagrin of everyone else), I don't know how feasible that'd be, given the difficulty in accessing the Origins' SH Servers and the fact that all documentation about them was lost to the mists of time.
And while I have ideas for a funny scene where Shurelia runs away when Sasha suggests fixing her (much to the chagrin of everyone else), I don't know how feasible that'd be, given the difficulty in accessing the Origins' SH Servers and the fact that all documentation about them was lost to the mists of time.
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- Location
- EXA_PICO
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I will reinforce this statement. If you like our fanfic, you need to watch Alice to Zoroku. It's more or less exactly the kind of anime I would make. It hits virtually every emotional note I want to try to hit with SiTF. It's like the writer knew what to do to make both of us completely happy.
I see, Enza can be a really patient Chozo when she wants to be. Guess she's perfectly fine keeping herself busy via remote projects though.
Are u going to continue it ??
Glad to hear
.
Chapter 10
- Location
- EXA_PICO
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That day, in spite of an initial hiccup, had looked set to be productive and pleasant. Hana's sudden request for some rather disconcertingly advanced science lessons had thrown him for a loop. He hadn't prepared any such material yet, nor did he think he would have to. She didn't seem to know the right words to describe the subjects she wanted to learn, but "What is matter made of?" and "Why is light missing pieces?" were some rather telling questions.
When he sat down with her and asked her to talk about her home and family instead, he felt mildly guilty about deflecting those questions for later. The unpreparedness made him uncomfortable, especially when it concerned topics he personally found enjoyable. Half his attention from that point was split between asking Hana questions and scrolling through his collection of digital books.
By chance he came across a book he'd long forgotten he had in his possession. Advanced Psychological Theory on Tribal Sapients, a text gifted to him by his nephew many years ago. He had never read it. While he'd taken psychology courses in his early schooling days, it hadn't been of great interest to him. He chose to keep it in mind for later. At the moment he was too busy to dive into it.
Truth be told, Shu-Qi found Hana's stories about home both entertaining and enlightening. Some of it was far from believable, making him worry how much of it was fabricated, and how much of that Hana believed. As she regaled him about the strange, clumsy "goddess" she called Turnip, of all things, he wondered if she had any suspicions at all that some of what she spoke of may not have been real. She admitted to her homeworld having an advanced VR system, and she often mixed up her stories with tales from there. There were many layers of suspicion he could pile up on that.
Hana's face brightened as she really got into her story, describing her day at the library. By now he had a good idea what Hana's face looked like when she was enthusiastic about something.
It would be disappointing if her charming portrait didn't turn out to accurately represent the reality of things.
Then the moment turned from enjoyable to gut-wrenching.
Perhaps it might have helped if he'd realized what she was doing and told her to stop. Perhaps it would have had no effect. She had already been absorbed by the effort to force through her mental blockage, and might have refused or ignored him. The what-ifs didn't matter.
After carrying her to her room, attempting to give her seclusion in a private space she would consider her own, she'd immediately refused to let him move. Once or twice he'd attempted to shift or stand up, only to find her clench her hands on his shirt tighter and pull herself closer. He didn't understand what she was doing, but he was not oblivious to this obvious demand. So he stayed, and waited.
Hana remained mostly silent until she finally let go and crawled under her sheets.
"I'm okay, " came her muffled voice.
Up to that point he'd never been more certain that she was lying.
Some time later Shu-Qi was in the solitude of his office, reclined at his desk with a physical copy of the psychology book in front of him. The only light came from the warm desk lamp illuminating his reading and the glow of a tablet left unattended on the desk next to him. He flipped through pages at a steady pace, seemingly engrossed. However, the dim illumination cast shadows that highlighted the furrowed and taut expression of his face. His turning of the book periodically became stilted, and he paused to scratch at the edge of pages between his fingers.
Shu-Qi scratched at a nervous itch on his wrist, momentarily distracted by an image in his AR overlay showing the little gynoid alone in her room. The portrait she'd drawn lay propped on the nearby writing desk, its artist seemingly doing everything in her power to avoid looking at it. In another adjacent image, Enza was preparing to finish up work.
Again and again, he wondered if he'd been wrong to give Enza the leeway he had. However, he was certain that he needed her assistance regardless.
"I undertook this responsibility unprepared."
Enza's visible eye flicked back to the monitor in front of her, examining the twisting and flickering model of a braided Phazon "molecule" being constructed in simulation. It was based on a seed they'd been collaborating to write for some time, and would be strong enough to tether a moon in the unlikely event that it didn't disintegrate. How one would braid a net for a moon, he thought, they'd leave as an exercise for later.
The concept of structured, usable nuclear matter wasn't a new one, but outside of the exotic conditions at the surface of a neutron star or magnetar, nuclear matter simply couldn't exist at all. Phazon was the exception to that. If they could replicate what Hana's creators had done, it would change everything.
"So, you think you need my help?"
He returned a stiff nod.
"The Apex have a tighter social structure than other branches of the family tree, more similar to humans than other Chozo. There is no one else here I can ask."
Enza blinked, a beat passing.
"Am I imposing too much?"
"Not at all, actually. I wish you had asked before this blew up in your face. It would have been easier."
That was not a new realization by this point.
"Join me tomorrow to speak with her. Excusing your presence will be simple enough."
Enza took some moments to ponder this. Shu-Qi waited patiently.
"No," she said, very casually.
"... No?"
"No. I want to see her tonight. Alone."
In the end, he'd given in to Enza's blandishments, choosing to appreciate the extra time for study, despite his misgivings. Trusting the newer generations was an important part of the social contract, even… no, especially in cases like this.
Unfortunately, his misgivings only increased overnight and into the following morning.
So here he sat, watching in confusion as a little red dot wandered the woods in worried little loops that seemed to go nowhere, fast. Hana's behavior wasn't truly impenetrable, but on an emotional level she might well be precisely what she appeared. An alien. Not, even if he could have seen her that way, that it would excuse him from handling her ethically.
By nightfall Shu-Qi was standing stiffly, tapping his foot and raking his fingers through his arm feathers as he observed the red dot on the map. Hana had finally decided to stop wandering all over the place.
What in the world did Hana really want?
Enza is expecting her to return, trying not to be intrusive. Enza was of the Apex. Shu-Qi truly didn't understand the social instincts of humanity, not emotionally, but he'd interacted with humanity before. Samus had been exceptional in many ways, but so was Hana. The Apex…
He knew he was simply distracting himself, but still waved a hand, dismissing his AR overlay. He remembered Hana's desperate clinging from last night.
"Apex history," he told the room. "Focus on cultural modifications. The purpose and implementation of their gene-mods."
The Apex had chosen to make themselves prosocial. Empathy, neural mirroring to an extent the other Chozo lacked, with the stated goal of preventing their history from repeating. They hadn't directly copied humanity, or one of the other similar species.
The Apex had taken only the best, but that in turn meant that Enza wasn't human. Whether or not they'd gotten it right, they hadn't cloned humanity. Hana wasn't human, even by her own admission, but she was far more human than Enza. The differences… he swiped through an ancient research summary. The Apex had made their children needier, but that was a cost, not a goal.
The aim was never to make them dependent. He narrowed his eyes. He'd missed it. If she had been a Chozo child…
When his nephew had run off, his brother had left him alone. Now Hana had run off, and Enza was leaving her alone, but the situations weren't mirrors. Enza had given her immediate attention, but had then treated her flight the same as one would a Chozo child, because the Apex were still Chozo. She saw the ways that Shu-Qi didn't understand her, but not the ways that Enza didn't.
Hana had been alone for an extended period of time. His initial encounter with her, in hindsight, made her look desperate for contact with others. Her seemingly aggressive and angry mannerisms whenever he attempted to leave each day now looked like intense clinginess. She wanted someone, wanted attention. She'd run, grieving and angry, but that didn't just remove her long standing need.
Hana would in all likelihood return. Eventually. She had no other choice, no other source for the contact she needed. That didn't make it right for them to sit here and wait for her.
Enza didn't wonder if she was doing the right thing, in part because she was too busy thinking up lesson plans, but also because she wasn't in the habit. Having been given the go-ahead from Shu-Qi, she was determined to invent a science class that would fascinate Hana, that was hands-on enough that it could have kept her own attention back when she was that age. It wasn't that long ago.
She was wise enough to know she'd get it wrong, but also determined to at least do her best. Her fingers twitched spastically as she sat in front of the temple, the only external sign of the nearly two dozen teaching and reference texts she had open in her workspace.
It was a sign of her focus that she didn't notice when Shu-Qi walked past, dressed in a light hiking outfit, until he stopped, looked back at her, and cleared his throat.
"Coming?" he asked mildly.
Hana, of course, had no idea she was now being followed. It was hard to say what she'd have done if she did.
Slowly hiking onward through the cool and damp night air, the underbrush was too moist to crunch and give any sign of her existence. This was still a jungle, like most of the planet, but the vegetation was less dense than most places. More like a normal forest.
Hana, had she been in a mood for it, would have been appreciating that. She spent a lot of her time not watching where she was going, but rather staring up at the sky. At least she did when there were openings in the trees, otherwise she stared at the leaves. Either would do, really…
She pursed her lips in a sour face, thinking about the juxtaposition of Enza pestering her to try and "help" her, and Shu-Qi being nowhere. Tama-jii probably gave up and didn't want to bother anymore.
Hana kicked an errant rock in her path and watched it skid off into the darkness where it made a loud clack against a tree. It took with it just a bit of the heat in her cheeks.
She stopped, that now-familiar tightening feeling in her chest. Her hand rested against the trunk of a tree, her surrounding nearly pitch black, only sounds of forest insects meeting her ears. She hadn't been out alone in the woods for a while. It reminded her of times back across the sea, before she built her treehouse.
Even before that, too. Before she got lost here. Sometimes she'd sneak out at night to go to the park. There was this one time, too, with Parsnip. The first time of lots more.
The forest at home had looked kind of like this, that night. All scary, filled with the shapes of imaginary monsters—a source of many fantastic tales she could cook up for story time.
They'd be mad she ran away, wouldn't they?
She gripped the front of her shirt.
Mom didn't normally mind much when Hana wandered around, so long as she didn't get in trouble. Dad was usually a bit more strict, but still calm about it, and just made her do extra chores if she came home late. The other kids said their parents got really angry about that and would make them stay in their rooms all day.
'I don't want to stay in that room anymore…' she thought, every single crack and seam of the room where she had her lessons long since burned into her mind. 'I'm sick of it. It sucks.'
She insisted to herself, they'd been the ones who did bad. She wasn't. They had tried to —help her— no, she didn't… didn't want that help. Not that way… She just wanted to go home.
Hana huffed. She was going in circles. Literally, too, but she just… she didn't want to go back yet. She'd told herself she was supposed to, and she'd tried, she'd really tried, but in the end she just wandered around after all.
What if they were angry with her?
She didn't have chores, or… or other things she had to do, like that time when Carrot—Ar Ru, she mentally amended—took her to say hi, or when mom, Musashi and Durian—no, that was mean—when mom, Musashi and Code took her to make sure she was working. 'Code'?
That just didn't work as a name, she thought with emphasis. 'Durian' would do.
But…
Maybe they'd ask her to sweep out the temple. She tried to imagine it, then shook her head wildly, locks of hair flying. If they did, she'd still be at it two weeks later.
Maybe… maybe she shouldn't go back at this time of night. They'd be angry with her, right—because she'd be waking them up. They'd be less upset if she waited till morning. That made sense.
She knew she was just fibbing, though.
Hana slowed to a halt. There was a sore feeling in her chest, and the closer to the temple she got, the stronger it felt. That was the real reason. Mom had told her to, to look towards the pain, but… she just…
She looked up at the stars. That felt better.
Years ago, she'd been worried because they were wrong. The stars were broken, the normally-smooth colors jittery and some almost missing completely, but over time she'd gotten used to it. They weren't the same stars as home, but they were stars, just like the ones she'd looked up to at home. She wondered what Parsnip was doing, if maybe she was looking up at them too.
Looking at them this way reminded her of home. They'd snuck out at night lots of times, lying down on the grass, gazing at the stars through the trees and telling each other crazy stories. All the stories no-one had told them, and the stories they'd made up themselves. Every single night for a while, and at least once per week as long as she could remember.
The stars went blurry. She squeezed her eyes shut, then blinked. Then again.
It had been their little secret.
She knew Cocona and Parsnip didn't like each other, and she was starting to figure out why, but back when they'd met, she'd never understood. She'd just known that if Parsnip was in the house then Cocona would be withdrawn and grumpy, and if Parsnip saw Cocona then Parsnip would look so guilty. Sometimes, they swapped roles. It was never any fun playing with her after that, so Hana had usually taken her out of the house.
Eventually they'd gotten used to each other. She'd even gotten Parsnip to stay for sleepovers! Pretty much every night, actually…
A scattering of memories flickered through her mind, her eyes going blurry with tears once again. Hana brought her hands up, ineffectively squeezing her eyes as if that would stop them from falling. She felt like the worst little sister in the world now. She'd forgotten that?
A little while later she laid down on the ground, an arm reached up to sketch one of the constellations they'd invented for each other, the "white dragon." Once upon a time there had been a knight, who'd been cursed to become a dragon, but he'd stayed to protect his hometown forever. It had been a really sad story, and… well, Parsnip had made it up, then they'd done their best to make it sadder. The stars were in all the wrong places, but that didn't really matter. It was a happy memory.
One night, Haruna had joined them. One of the stars, she'd said, had been her home. The place they were supposed to defend. The planet was thousands of years gone, but she'd pointed out the star, and she'd told them stories about the nations on its surface. How Chrysanthemum had created the Fog, to split the nations and stop war forever. How their old enemies had taught them to survive in the vacuum of space, and together the nations had begun spinning a web around their star. Stories of everything they'd been planning to do.
Haruna never looked sad, but she'd sounded heartbroken that day.
Even when she hadn't remembered Parsnip at all, Hana had known that the stars were important. If she hadn't had them, back then…
Watching the stars had been the first thing they'd done together as friends. Then there'd been games, and sleepovers, and then Parsnip had practically installed herself in their house. She'd never looked sad, but she'd been so happy just to always have someone there to talk to, someone to give her hugs and tell her good morning. Hana hadn't noticed, she'd just thought Parsnip was always that way.
She remembered it all. Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile, because she remembered, and she hadn't understood. Parsnip… Metafalica and her had been… 'Friends,' was it? They weren't related. Right—just like Cocona and her weren't related, or Cocona and Mom, or…
They'd been family. They'd been sisters, just as much as Cocona and her.
She hoped they were doing well, and not fighting, the four of them.
It was a dumb thought. Without her there, they couldn't even talk to Metafalica. No-one could.
It hurt, that thought. Parsnip sitting there on her own, just letting life go by. It hurt even more because Parsnip had told her it didn't hurt.
Hana lost sight of the pattern she was drawing and tried blinking out more blurriness, but her eyelids felt heavy. She felt so tired, suddenly. She slowly floated up to the bottom branches of a tree, picked out a soft-looking mossy one and curled up on top of the branch, trying to ignore the burning feeling in her stomach. Maybe she'd just lay here and rest until morning.
It had been a few weeks after the first time she met Parsnip. The night was cold and the sky was clear. She didn't remember why but she felt grumpy that day, and decided to sneak out. The park was the best place to go. It had a nice big hill above the trees to watch stars from, and the view of town was pretty. She got her favorite sweater and slacks and took some candy from the kitchen, then went out the window of her room.
She crossed the street, entered the trees and then everything got real dark. All around her she could hear chirping, and in the distance she saw dizzily swarming glowbugs. Soon she was deep in the park's forest, and once she found the landmark she was looking for—a tree branch that curled like a pretzel—she stepped off the path. She knew the way like the back of her hand, and she wasn't going to get lost. Also, she had a map.
In the darkness, everything looked so weird. Shadows took on menacing shapes, and trees looked like big things with claws reaching out to grab her.
Hana giggled. She didn't need to be scared of monsters. Cocona had taught her how to escape lots of mean things, and Walnut was probably following her anyway. That made the whole "sneaking away from home into the scary woods" angle a lot less cool if she thought about it, though.
She turned a corner and there was a huge scary face on a tree! Maybe a monster possessed it! There were supposed to be those kinds of monsters once. They weren't around anymore, but she imagined the story of one monster sneaking into the forest to live in a tree all alone. All the other tree monsters from the old world were long gone.
She liked that story. It was kinda sad sounding. Maybe she'd work on it and tell Mom.
Hana munched on a piece of candy as she thought about it. If she suddenly made friends with the tree monster, it would totally change the genre and kind of ruin the story. Still, If someone was alone and sad for real, she thought she really should do something about it, but maybe there wasn't anything living in the tree at all.
She decided to check to make sure.
By kicking it.
"Hello! Are you a tree monster?" Hana asked, pounding the trunk with her shoe. The tree rattled with each kick. Hana realized she was probably kicking too hard when she heard a snap and pulled her foot back, staring worriedly. She didn't kick through the bark so—
*SNAP*
"AHHHHH!"
All of a sudden a colorful object fell from the tree and flopped on the ground next to Hana, making her jump into the air in surprise. She bobbed around for a moment without falling back down, her balance uncertain. With wide eyes Hana leaned forward to see what had fallen, and spotted a familiar festival mask atop a head of black hair and a colorful yukata.
"Parsnip?"
"Huh." Parsnip said flatly, staring up at the sky. "You're two for two now."
The dark haired Will got up and brushed off dust that wasn't there, or maybe just unruffled her yukata. Then she met Hana with a smile. Not the smile that made her scared., thankfully. That smile was weird. She didn't like it.
"What for two?" she asked, confused.
"Heh. Oh, nothing." Parsnip waved it off. "I see you're off sneaking out again, Fauri."
Again? She narrowed her eyes. When was she watching before?
"How long did you know about that?"
"Oh, always. I'm technically everywhere on the continent, but most of the time I manifest somewhere around here. I like this park a lot."
So… she could have met Parsnip sooner? How did she miss her? She'd run up to every kid in the park and said hi!
"The inside of my soul space is actually here… well, this place is copied inside there, if that makes more sense. I filled it with a carnival and lots of cool stuff!"
A carnival with nobody else to play with...
"Oi, no upset faces." Metafalica said, poking Hana's nose. "My moms come visit me as much as they can."
The little girl stared cross-eyed at the finger, before giving Parsnip a questioning look.
"... I'm not saying you can't hug me, if that's what you're thinking."
Hana didn't need to be told twice. Parsnip giggled as the smaller girl latched on, a giggle that sounded just the tiniest bit strangled. Hana thought that maybe she'd squeezed too tight, but she was real careful.
"Do you wanna come look at stars with me?" Hana asked, gazing hopefully. Parsnip still smiled back, opened her mouth…
Closed her mouth. She looked like she was thinking. Was she going to say no?
"I even have some candy! You tried to make candy before.... I didn't think I'd see you here, but I brought some, and I don't really need it… but um you don't need it either… anyway, have some!"
She stepped back and prodded Parsnip with the candy, eliciting a startled giggle along with rapid blinks.
"Even if I could touch them, I can't eat them. You know that, Fauri." She paused, and her smile grew a little more natural, a little less forced. "Wish I could. I remember candy, but I've never actually eaten any for real."
Hana pouted, but quickly stuck the candy back in her pocket. That had been hers, and she didn't want to lose it.
"Do you want to play?"
Parsnip went still. Hana took the chance to eye her, up and down. She was pretty, like in one of dad's paintings, but her clothes weren't real were they? They were like Cocona's when she was playing with her. She could turn them off later, and the dirt would just fall off.
Which meant she wasn't doing something bad, asking her that when she was all dressed up like this.
Parsnip was still hesitating. Hana stomped her foot, a little too hard. A second later she was carefully scraping leaves back over the hole she'd just made, sneaking her body in-between it and Parsnip and hoping the latter wouldn't notice what she was doing.
She felt a sore, hurt-y feeling, like she always did when the other children were scared of playing with her. That hadn't happened in a while. Why didn't Parsnip like her?
"I…"
Her eyes snapped back up to Parsnip.
"I don't want to do this," Parsnip muttered to herself. She narrowed her eyes at Hana. Then, before she could fully process that, Parsnip suddenly grinned. "You know what? Sure! I always wanted to try—"
She took aim, leapt off the ground, and tackled Hana at full speed.
"THIS! Take that, you!" Parsnip laughed as they tumbled across the ground, her breath coming in giggling gasps. "That's for kicking me out of my tree, you little demon! And this is for being all huggy!"
They came to a halt, Parsnip on top and pinning her with all four limbs, right on the edge of a small cliff on the hill. Parsnip's breathing was ragged, but she was grinning like mad. Then her smile faded a little.
"Um. Say, Fauri. You basically can't be hurt, right?"
She nodded cautiously. Experimentally, she tried to flex her limbs, but Parsnip was way heavier than a ghost had any right to be.
"That's good. Say, remember when we first met?" Her smile strengthened again, and Hana weakly smiled back. She had a very bad feeling about this.
"I'm sorry about hitting you," she said. "And kicking your tree—"
Parsnip slowly crawled forward, dragging Hana along, until half of her body was over the edge of the cliff and she felt completely squished.
She had a very bad feeling about this!
"I— wanted to go look at stars—" she wheezed out, twisting her neck to look downwards. The fall was only a meter or two, but there was a long way down after that. "I don't want to go— all the way—"
"Too bad!" Parsnip pushed them the last few millimeters over the edge, latching on tightly.
"—back dooown!"
She felt the rock scraping against her back as she slid for a second, destroying her third sweater in two weeks. Then—she tried hovering, but it wouldn't work—her stomach attempted to escape—they fell for half a second, hit with a bone-jarring crunch and started tumbling, head over heels.
A root tried to tear away Parsnip, and they lashed out to get a better grip on each other before they could separate, but it was all becoming a horrible tangle and she didn't know what was a leg and what was an arm. As she gasped for breath in between tearing through bushes, she realised she was laughing right along with the other girl.
The next half-minute was very confused. Trees, bushes, the occasional rock… Hana could barely keep track of what was up, let alone everything they were tumbling through.
They finally rolled to a stop next to a massive tree, Parsnip still on top, Hana's outerwear frayed and riddled with leaves and grass and green stains. That was okay, she figured; Dad bought in bulk. Her hair, though… how would she get all the sticks out before morning?
Parsnip was still as pristine as ever. That was unfair!
The thought didn't last, as Parsnip rolled off her and lay spread-eagled staring upwards, face flushed and grin still firmly in place. Hana looked pretty much the same. That had been fun. Scary, but fun!
For a while she just laid there, catching her breath.
"Hey…" Parsnip said, a warmth in her voice that hadn't been there before. "You wanted to see the stars, right? Look up!"
She looked.
They were beneath a tree, but—
The branches of the tree slowly moved, groaning as it opened up a space just large enough for the two of them to see the sky. Hana's eyes widened. She stared at the sight, then looked at Parsnip, who grinned impishly and stuck a finger in front of her lips.
"It's not like I can't do anything at all," she said. "It's just tiring."
"Wow…"
She looked up at the sky.
A little while later, Hana felt a hand touching hers. She took it, and they laid there a long while, watching the stars.
"...Parsnip?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you help me clean my hair before I go home?"
"Ah. No worries."
The memory faded almost reluctantly, Hana blinking once as the stars in her dream became the stars she'd been staring at. None of them hers, but she felt a faint tug towards them. Maybe, maybe somewhere out there, there was someone who could get her home.
That had been odd. Why…?
<DDW <-> DHW secondary channel tests: Complete>
The thought flickered through her head, there and gone again like it hadn't been hers to begin with. Which was sort of true—it was one of her subsystems. The black box. The thing that had been broken. It wasn't quite so broken anymore.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she prodded it for a status report.
<SHS status: Suspended/stage 1 rebuild, on external power>
Hana frowned. She didn't see a power feed…
<Ext TzW carrier detect: 5.2*10^5Hz@14W>
<Rebuilding wavenet range 0x2712-0x273a>
<<Corruption detected, identifying matching sections>>
<<0x2712 remapped to 0x13b719f>>
<<0x2713 remapped to 0x5a7a3>>
She momentarily froze, and nearly fell off her branch before she could push the thousands of near-identical, intrusive 'thoughts' out of her head.
The black box wasn't so broken anymore, and it wasn't so black anymore. That put a smile on her face, because it was fixing itself, even if she wasn't sure what it was for. She'd find out, she supposed.
Then she looked up to the sky. There was…
The sky was full of black, and the stars were wrong, but there was something there that tugged at her. Not one of the stars. Her eyes fixed on a spot of darkness, no different from the billion others. Just a spot of black. Except… except, somehow, it had some of what was missing from the stars. She knew that like she knew her own name.
When he sat down with her and asked her to talk about her home and family instead, he felt mildly guilty about deflecting those questions for later. The unpreparedness made him uncomfortable, especially when it concerned topics he personally found enjoyable. Half his attention from that point was split between asking Hana questions and scrolling through his collection of digital books.
By chance he came across a book he'd long forgotten he had in his possession. Advanced Psychological Theory on Tribal Sapients, a text gifted to him by his nephew many years ago. He had never read it. While he'd taken psychology courses in his early schooling days, it hadn't been of great interest to him. He chose to keep it in mind for later. At the moment he was too busy to dive into it.
Truth be told, Shu-Qi found Hana's stories about home both entertaining and enlightening. Some of it was far from believable, making him worry how much of it was fabricated, and how much of that Hana believed. As she regaled him about the strange, clumsy "goddess" she called Turnip, of all things, he wondered if she had any suspicions at all that some of what she spoke of may not have been real. She admitted to her homeworld having an advanced VR system, and she often mixed up her stories with tales from there. There were many layers of suspicion he could pile up on that.
Hana's face brightened as she really got into her story, describing her day at the library. By now he had a good idea what Hana's face looked like when she was enthusiastic about something.
It would be disappointing if her charming portrait didn't turn out to accurately represent the reality of things.
Then the moment turned from enjoyable to gut-wrenching.
Perhaps it might have helped if he'd realized what she was doing and told her to stop. Perhaps it would have had no effect. She had already been absorbed by the effort to force through her mental blockage, and might have refused or ignored him. The what-ifs didn't matter.
After carrying her to her room, attempting to give her seclusion in a private space she would consider her own, she'd immediately refused to let him move. Once or twice he'd attempted to shift or stand up, only to find her clench her hands on his shirt tighter and pull herself closer. He didn't understand what she was doing, but he was not oblivious to this obvious demand. So he stayed, and waited.
Hana remained mostly silent until she finally let go and crawled under her sheets.
"I'm okay, " came her muffled voice.
Up to that point he'd never been more certain that she was lying.
Some time later Shu-Qi was in the solitude of his office, reclined at his desk with a physical copy of the psychology book in front of him. The only light came from the warm desk lamp illuminating his reading and the glow of a tablet left unattended on the desk next to him. He flipped through pages at a steady pace, seemingly engrossed. However, the dim illumination cast shadows that highlighted the furrowed and taut expression of his face. His turning of the book periodically became stilted, and he paused to scratch at the edge of pages between his fingers.
Shu-Qi scratched at a nervous itch on his wrist, momentarily distracted by an image in his AR overlay showing the little gynoid alone in her room. The portrait she'd drawn lay propped on the nearby writing desk, its artist seemingly doing everything in her power to avoid looking at it. In another adjacent image, Enza was preparing to finish up work.
Again and again, he wondered if he'd been wrong to give Enza the leeway he had. However, he was certain that he needed her assistance regardless.
"I undertook this responsibility unprepared."
Enza's visible eye flicked back to the monitor in front of her, examining the twisting and flickering model of a braided Phazon "molecule" being constructed in simulation. It was based on a seed they'd been collaborating to write for some time, and would be strong enough to tether a moon in the unlikely event that it didn't disintegrate. How one would braid a net for a moon, he thought, they'd leave as an exercise for later.
The concept of structured, usable nuclear matter wasn't a new one, but outside of the exotic conditions at the surface of a neutron star or magnetar, nuclear matter simply couldn't exist at all. Phazon was the exception to that. If they could replicate what Hana's creators had done, it would change everything.
"So, you think you need my help?"
He returned a stiff nod.
"The Apex have a tighter social structure than other branches of the family tree, more similar to humans than other Chozo. There is no one else here I can ask."
Enza blinked, a beat passing.
"Am I imposing too much?"
"Not at all, actually. I wish you had asked before this blew up in your face. It would have been easier."
That was not a new realization by this point.
"Join me tomorrow to speak with her. Excusing your presence will be simple enough."
Enza took some moments to ponder this. Shu-Qi waited patiently.
"No," she said, very casually.
"... No?"
"No. I want to see her tonight. Alone."
In the end, he'd given in to Enza's blandishments, choosing to appreciate the extra time for study, despite his misgivings. Trusting the newer generations was an important part of the social contract, even… no, especially in cases like this.
Unfortunately, his misgivings only increased overnight and into the following morning.
So here he sat, watching in confusion as a little red dot wandered the woods in worried little loops that seemed to go nowhere, fast. Hana's behavior wasn't truly impenetrable, but on an emotional level she might well be precisely what she appeared. An alien. Not, even if he could have seen her that way, that it would excuse him from handling her ethically.
By nightfall Shu-Qi was standing stiffly, tapping his foot and raking his fingers through his arm feathers as he observed the red dot on the map. Hana had finally decided to stop wandering all over the place.
What in the world did Hana really want?
Enza is expecting her to return, trying not to be intrusive. Enza was of the Apex. Shu-Qi truly didn't understand the social instincts of humanity, not emotionally, but he'd interacted with humanity before. Samus had been exceptional in many ways, but so was Hana. The Apex…
He knew he was simply distracting himself, but still waved a hand, dismissing his AR overlay. He remembered Hana's desperate clinging from last night.
"Apex history," he told the room. "Focus on cultural modifications. The purpose and implementation of their gene-mods."
The Apex had chosen to make themselves prosocial. Empathy, neural mirroring to an extent the other Chozo lacked, with the stated goal of preventing their history from repeating. They hadn't directly copied humanity, or one of the other similar species.
The Apex had taken only the best, but that in turn meant that Enza wasn't human. Whether or not they'd gotten it right, they hadn't cloned humanity. Hana wasn't human, even by her own admission, but she was far more human than Enza. The differences… he swiped through an ancient research summary. The Apex had made their children needier, but that was a cost, not a goal.
The aim was never to make them dependent. He narrowed his eyes. He'd missed it. If she had been a Chozo child…
When his nephew had run off, his brother had left him alone. Now Hana had run off, and Enza was leaving her alone, but the situations weren't mirrors. Enza had given her immediate attention, but had then treated her flight the same as one would a Chozo child, because the Apex were still Chozo. She saw the ways that Shu-Qi didn't understand her, but not the ways that Enza didn't.
Hana had been alone for an extended period of time. His initial encounter with her, in hindsight, made her look desperate for contact with others. Her seemingly aggressive and angry mannerisms whenever he attempted to leave each day now looked like intense clinginess. She wanted someone, wanted attention. She'd run, grieving and angry, but that didn't just remove her long standing need.
Hana would in all likelihood return. Eventually. She had no other choice, no other source for the contact she needed. That didn't make it right for them to sit here and wait for her.
Enza didn't wonder if she was doing the right thing, in part because she was too busy thinking up lesson plans, but also because she wasn't in the habit. Having been given the go-ahead from Shu-Qi, she was determined to invent a science class that would fascinate Hana, that was hands-on enough that it could have kept her own attention back when she was that age. It wasn't that long ago.
She was wise enough to know she'd get it wrong, but also determined to at least do her best. Her fingers twitched spastically as she sat in front of the temple, the only external sign of the nearly two dozen teaching and reference texts she had open in her workspace.
It was a sign of her focus that she didn't notice when Shu-Qi walked past, dressed in a light hiking outfit, until he stopped, looked back at her, and cleared his throat.
"Coming?" he asked mildly.
Hana, of course, had no idea she was now being followed. It was hard to say what she'd have done if she did.
Slowly hiking onward through the cool and damp night air, the underbrush was too moist to crunch and give any sign of her existence. This was still a jungle, like most of the planet, but the vegetation was less dense than most places. More like a normal forest.
Hana, had she been in a mood for it, would have been appreciating that. She spent a lot of her time not watching where she was going, but rather staring up at the sky. At least she did when there were openings in the trees, otherwise she stared at the leaves. Either would do, really…
She pursed her lips in a sour face, thinking about the juxtaposition of Enza pestering her to try and "help" her, and Shu-Qi being nowhere. Tama-jii probably gave up and didn't want to bother anymore.
Hana kicked an errant rock in her path and watched it skid off into the darkness where it made a loud clack against a tree. It took with it just a bit of the heat in her cheeks.
She stopped, that now-familiar tightening feeling in her chest. Her hand rested against the trunk of a tree, her surrounding nearly pitch black, only sounds of forest insects meeting her ears. She hadn't been out alone in the woods for a while. It reminded her of times back across the sea, before she built her treehouse.
Even before that, too. Before she got lost here. Sometimes she'd sneak out at night to go to the park. There was this one time, too, with Parsnip. The first time of lots more.
The forest at home had looked kind of like this, that night. All scary, filled with the shapes of imaginary monsters—a source of many fantastic tales she could cook up for story time.
They'd be mad she ran away, wouldn't they?
She gripped the front of her shirt.
Mom didn't normally mind much when Hana wandered around, so long as she didn't get in trouble. Dad was usually a bit more strict, but still calm about it, and just made her do extra chores if she came home late. The other kids said their parents got really angry about that and would make them stay in their rooms all day.
'I don't want to stay in that room anymore…' she thought, every single crack and seam of the room where she had her lessons long since burned into her mind. 'I'm sick of it. It sucks.'
She insisted to herself, they'd been the ones who did bad. She wasn't. They had tried to —help her— no, she didn't… didn't want that help. Not that way… She just wanted to go home.
Hana huffed. She was going in circles. Literally, too, but she just… she didn't want to go back yet. She'd told herself she was supposed to, and she'd tried, she'd really tried, but in the end she just wandered around after all.
What if they were angry with her?
She didn't have chores, or… or other things she had to do, like that time when Carrot—Ar Ru, she mentally amended—took her to say hi, or when mom, Musashi and Durian—no, that was mean—when mom, Musashi and Code took her to make sure she was working. 'Code'?
That just didn't work as a name, she thought with emphasis. 'Durian' would do.
But…
Maybe they'd ask her to sweep out the temple. She tried to imagine it, then shook her head wildly, locks of hair flying. If they did, she'd still be at it two weeks later.
Maybe… maybe she shouldn't go back at this time of night. They'd be angry with her, right—because she'd be waking them up. They'd be less upset if she waited till morning. That made sense.
She knew she was just fibbing, though.
Hana slowed to a halt. There was a sore feeling in her chest, and the closer to the temple she got, the stronger it felt. That was the real reason. Mom had told her to, to look towards the pain, but… she just…
She looked up at the stars. That felt better.
Years ago, she'd been worried because they were wrong. The stars were broken, the normally-smooth colors jittery and some almost missing completely, but over time she'd gotten used to it. They weren't the same stars as home, but they were stars, just like the ones she'd looked up to at home. She wondered what Parsnip was doing, if maybe she was looking up at them too.
Looking at them this way reminded her of home. They'd snuck out at night lots of times, lying down on the grass, gazing at the stars through the trees and telling each other crazy stories. All the stories no-one had told them, and the stories they'd made up themselves. Every single night for a while, and at least once per week as long as she could remember.
The stars went blurry. She squeezed her eyes shut, then blinked. Then again.
It had been their little secret.
She knew Cocona and Parsnip didn't like each other, and she was starting to figure out why, but back when they'd met, she'd never understood. She'd just known that if Parsnip was in the house then Cocona would be withdrawn and grumpy, and if Parsnip saw Cocona then Parsnip would look so guilty. Sometimes, they swapped roles. It was never any fun playing with her after that, so Hana had usually taken her out of the house.
Eventually they'd gotten used to each other. She'd even gotten Parsnip to stay for sleepovers! Pretty much every night, actually…
A scattering of memories flickered through her mind, her eyes going blurry with tears once again. Hana brought her hands up, ineffectively squeezing her eyes as if that would stop them from falling. She felt like the worst little sister in the world now. She'd forgotten that?
A little while later she laid down on the ground, an arm reached up to sketch one of the constellations they'd invented for each other, the "white dragon." Once upon a time there had been a knight, who'd been cursed to become a dragon, but he'd stayed to protect his hometown forever. It had been a really sad story, and… well, Parsnip had made it up, then they'd done their best to make it sadder. The stars were in all the wrong places, but that didn't really matter. It was a happy memory.
One night, Haruna had joined them. One of the stars, she'd said, had been her home. The place they were supposed to defend. The planet was thousands of years gone, but she'd pointed out the star, and she'd told them stories about the nations on its surface. How Chrysanthemum had created the Fog, to split the nations and stop war forever. How their old enemies had taught them to survive in the vacuum of space, and together the nations had begun spinning a web around their star. Stories of everything they'd been planning to do.
Haruna never looked sad, but she'd sounded heartbroken that day.
Even when she hadn't remembered Parsnip at all, Hana had known that the stars were important. If she hadn't had them, back then…
Watching the stars had been the first thing they'd done together as friends. Then there'd been games, and sleepovers, and then Parsnip had practically installed herself in their house. She'd never looked sad, but she'd been so happy just to always have someone there to talk to, someone to give her hugs and tell her good morning. Hana hadn't noticed, she'd just thought Parsnip was always that way.
She remembered it all. Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile, because she remembered, and she hadn't understood. Parsnip… Metafalica and her had been… 'Friends,' was it? They weren't related. Right—just like Cocona and her weren't related, or Cocona and Mom, or…
They'd been family. They'd been sisters, just as much as Cocona and her.
She hoped they were doing well, and not fighting, the four of them.
It was a dumb thought. Without her there, they couldn't even talk to Metafalica. No-one could.
It hurt, that thought. Parsnip sitting there on her own, just letting life go by. It hurt even more because Parsnip had told her it didn't hurt.
Hana lost sight of the pattern she was drawing and tried blinking out more blurriness, but her eyelids felt heavy. She felt so tired, suddenly. She slowly floated up to the bottom branches of a tree, picked out a soft-looking mossy one and curled up on top of the branch, trying to ignore the burning feeling in her stomach. Maybe she'd just lay here and rest until morning.
It had been a few weeks after the first time she met Parsnip. The night was cold and the sky was clear. She didn't remember why but she felt grumpy that day, and decided to sneak out. The park was the best place to go. It had a nice big hill above the trees to watch stars from, and the view of town was pretty. She got her favorite sweater and slacks and took some candy from the kitchen, then went out the window of her room.
She crossed the street, entered the trees and then everything got real dark. All around her she could hear chirping, and in the distance she saw dizzily swarming glowbugs. Soon she was deep in the park's forest, and once she found the landmark she was looking for—a tree branch that curled like a pretzel—she stepped off the path. She knew the way like the back of her hand, and she wasn't going to get lost. Also, she had a map.
In the darkness, everything looked so weird. Shadows took on menacing shapes, and trees looked like big things with claws reaching out to grab her.
Hana giggled. She didn't need to be scared of monsters. Cocona had taught her how to escape lots of mean things, and Walnut was probably following her anyway. That made the whole "sneaking away from home into the scary woods" angle a lot less cool if she thought about it, though.
She turned a corner and there was a huge scary face on a tree! Maybe a monster possessed it! There were supposed to be those kinds of monsters once. They weren't around anymore, but she imagined the story of one monster sneaking into the forest to live in a tree all alone. All the other tree monsters from the old world were long gone.
She liked that story. It was kinda sad sounding. Maybe she'd work on it and tell Mom.
Hana munched on a piece of candy as she thought about it. If she suddenly made friends with the tree monster, it would totally change the genre and kind of ruin the story. Still, If someone was alone and sad for real, she thought she really should do something about it, but maybe there wasn't anything living in the tree at all.
She decided to check to make sure.
By kicking it.
"Hello! Are you a tree monster?" Hana asked, pounding the trunk with her shoe. The tree rattled with each kick. Hana realized she was probably kicking too hard when she heard a snap and pulled her foot back, staring worriedly. She didn't kick through the bark so—
*SNAP*
"AHHHHH!"
All of a sudden a colorful object fell from the tree and flopped on the ground next to Hana, making her jump into the air in surprise. She bobbed around for a moment without falling back down, her balance uncertain. With wide eyes Hana leaned forward to see what had fallen, and spotted a familiar festival mask atop a head of black hair and a colorful yukata.
"Parsnip?"
"Huh." Parsnip said flatly, staring up at the sky. "You're two for two now."
The dark haired Will got up and brushed off dust that wasn't there, or maybe just unruffled her yukata. Then she met Hana with a smile. Not the smile that made her scared., thankfully. That smile was weird. She didn't like it.
"What for two?" she asked, confused.
"Heh. Oh, nothing." Parsnip waved it off. "I see you're off sneaking out again, Fauri."
Again? She narrowed her eyes. When was she watching before?
"How long did you know about that?"
"Oh, always. I'm technically everywhere on the continent, but most of the time I manifest somewhere around here. I like this park a lot."
So… she could have met Parsnip sooner? How did she miss her? She'd run up to every kid in the park and said hi!
"The inside of my soul space is actually here… well, this place is copied inside there, if that makes more sense. I filled it with a carnival and lots of cool stuff!"
A carnival with nobody else to play with...
"Oi, no upset faces." Metafalica said, poking Hana's nose. "My moms come visit me as much as they can."
The little girl stared cross-eyed at the finger, before giving Parsnip a questioning look.
"... I'm not saying you can't hug me, if that's what you're thinking."
Hana didn't need to be told twice. Parsnip giggled as the smaller girl latched on, a giggle that sounded just the tiniest bit strangled. Hana thought that maybe she'd squeezed too tight, but she was real careful.
"Do you wanna come look at stars with me?" Hana asked, gazing hopefully. Parsnip still smiled back, opened her mouth…
Closed her mouth. She looked like she was thinking. Was she going to say no?
"I even have some candy! You tried to make candy before.... I didn't think I'd see you here, but I brought some, and I don't really need it… but um you don't need it either… anyway, have some!"
She stepped back and prodded Parsnip with the candy, eliciting a startled giggle along with rapid blinks.
"Even if I could touch them, I can't eat them. You know that, Fauri." She paused, and her smile grew a little more natural, a little less forced. "Wish I could. I remember candy, but I've never actually eaten any for real."
Hana pouted, but quickly stuck the candy back in her pocket. That had been hers, and she didn't want to lose it.
"Do you want to play?"
Parsnip went still. Hana took the chance to eye her, up and down. She was pretty, like in one of dad's paintings, but her clothes weren't real were they? They were like Cocona's when she was playing with her. She could turn them off later, and the dirt would just fall off.
Which meant she wasn't doing something bad, asking her that when she was all dressed up like this.
Parsnip was still hesitating. Hana stomped her foot, a little too hard. A second later she was carefully scraping leaves back over the hole she'd just made, sneaking her body in-between it and Parsnip and hoping the latter wouldn't notice what she was doing.
She felt a sore, hurt-y feeling, like she always did when the other children were scared of playing with her. That hadn't happened in a while. Why didn't Parsnip like her?
"I…"
Her eyes snapped back up to Parsnip.
"I don't want to do this," Parsnip muttered to herself. She narrowed her eyes at Hana. Then, before she could fully process that, Parsnip suddenly grinned. "You know what? Sure! I always wanted to try—"
She took aim, leapt off the ground, and tackled Hana at full speed.
"THIS! Take that, you!" Parsnip laughed as they tumbled across the ground, her breath coming in giggling gasps. "That's for kicking me out of my tree, you little demon! And this is for being all huggy!"
They came to a halt, Parsnip on top and pinning her with all four limbs, right on the edge of a small cliff on the hill. Parsnip's breathing was ragged, but she was grinning like mad. Then her smile faded a little.
"Um. Say, Fauri. You basically can't be hurt, right?"
She nodded cautiously. Experimentally, she tried to flex her limbs, but Parsnip was way heavier than a ghost had any right to be.
"That's good. Say, remember when we first met?" Her smile strengthened again, and Hana weakly smiled back. She had a very bad feeling about this.
"I'm sorry about hitting you," she said. "And kicking your tree—"
Parsnip slowly crawled forward, dragging Hana along, until half of her body was over the edge of the cliff and she felt completely squished.
She had a very bad feeling about this!
"I— wanted to go look at stars—" she wheezed out, twisting her neck to look downwards. The fall was only a meter or two, but there was a long way down after that. "I don't want to go— all the way—"
"Too bad!" Parsnip pushed them the last few millimeters over the edge, latching on tightly.
"—back dooown!"
She felt the rock scraping against her back as she slid for a second, destroying her third sweater in two weeks. Then—she tried hovering, but it wouldn't work—her stomach attempted to escape—they fell for half a second, hit with a bone-jarring crunch and started tumbling, head over heels.
A root tried to tear away Parsnip, and they lashed out to get a better grip on each other before they could separate, but it was all becoming a horrible tangle and she didn't know what was a leg and what was an arm. As she gasped for breath in between tearing through bushes, she realised she was laughing right along with the other girl.
The next half-minute was very confused. Trees, bushes, the occasional rock… Hana could barely keep track of what was up, let alone everything they were tumbling through.
They finally rolled to a stop next to a massive tree, Parsnip still on top, Hana's outerwear frayed and riddled with leaves and grass and green stains. That was okay, she figured; Dad bought in bulk. Her hair, though… how would she get all the sticks out before morning?
Parsnip was still as pristine as ever. That was unfair!
The thought didn't last, as Parsnip rolled off her and lay spread-eagled staring upwards, face flushed and grin still firmly in place. Hana looked pretty much the same. That had been fun. Scary, but fun!
For a while she just laid there, catching her breath.
"Hey…" Parsnip said, a warmth in her voice that hadn't been there before. "You wanted to see the stars, right? Look up!"
She looked.
They were beneath a tree, but—
The branches of the tree slowly moved, groaning as it opened up a space just large enough for the two of them to see the sky. Hana's eyes widened. She stared at the sight, then looked at Parsnip, who grinned impishly and stuck a finger in front of her lips.
"It's not like I can't do anything at all," she said. "It's just tiring."
"Wow…"
She looked up at the sky.
A little while later, Hana felt a hand touching hers. She took it, and they laid there a long while, watching the stars.
"...Parsnip?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you help me clean my hair before I go home?"
"Ah. No worries."
The memory faded almost reluctantly, Hana blinking once as the stars in her dream became the stars she'd been staring at. None of them hers, but she felt a faint tug towards them. Maybe, maybe somewhere out there, there was someone who could get her home.
That had been odd. Why…?
<DDW <-> DHW secondary channel tests: Complete>
The thought flickered through her head, there and gone again like it hadn't been hers to begin with. Which was sort of true—it was one of her subsystems. The black box. The thing that had been broken. It wasn't quite so broken anymore.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she prodded it for a status report.
<SHS status: Suspended/stage 1 rebuild, on external power>
Hana frowned. She didn't see a power feed…
<Ext TzW carrier detect: 5.2*10^5Hz@14W>
<Rebuilding wavenet range 0x2712-0x273a>
<<Corruption detected, identifying matching sections>>
<<0x2712 remapped to 0x13b719f>>
<<0x2713 remapped to 0x5a7a3>>
She momentarily froze, and nearly fell off her branch before she could push the thousands of near-identical, intrusive 'thoughts' out of her head.
The black box wasn't so broken anymore, and it wasn't so black anymore. That put a smile on her face, because it was fixing itself, even if she wasn't sure what it was for. She'd find out, she supposed.
Then she looked up to the sky. There was…
The sky was full of black, and the stars were wrong, but there was something there that tugged at her. Not one of the stars. Her eyes fixed on a spot of darkness, no different from the billion others. Just a spot of black. Except… except, somehow, it had some of what was missing from the stars. She knew that like she knew her own name.
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I'm glad that this is back.
Ginger Maniac
Subject to Gravity
- Location
- Old Blighty
Oh yes. Updates for this are always good news, if less so for Hana. She's really feeling that whole 'alone among aliens' thing, but hopefully when Shu-Qi and Enza show up in their yomping gear her mood will improve.
As for what she saw, that's going to either be some previously-unknown Phazon concentration, or Haruna. I'm hoping it's the second - I've already made my preference for, "I thought you were dead!" "You thought that would stop me?" known.
As for what she saw, that's going to either be some previously-unknown Phazon concentration, or Haruna. I'm hoping it's the second - I've already made my preference for, "I thought you were dead!" "You thought that would stop me?" known.
And that girl is adorable as always.
Highwind
To Rise From The Ashes
- Location
- Brazil
Oh my god this is back! It's finally back!
And things are looking up for Hana! Shu-Qi is learning how to deal with (mostly) human kids! Enza helped but not exactly the way we thought she would! Hana is getting more of her memories back!
And things are looking up for Hana! Shu-Qi is learning how to deal with (mostly) human kids! Enza helped but not exactly the way we thought she would! Hana is getting more of her memories back!
...and apparently she's closer to getting her Song Magic back to fully online and at full power. I can't see this being troublesome or dangerous in any way. Hana is the very picture of happiness and emotional stability after all.
I have no idea what this actually means, all I know is that TzW is Surge Concerto stuff and that Hana's systems are apparently fixing themselves as best as they can.
I'm sure this isn't an ominous sign of any kind. Really.
- Location
- EXA_PICO
- Pronouns
- He/Him
AGGGGGGH!
Nope. No, this was not ready. I'm so angry. I read it back again and think "well this here and here actually doesn't make sense, this is terrible".
I think I fixed it without changing much. I'm not going to point out exactly what it was in hope of most not noticing it.
Nope. No, this was not ready. I'm so angry. I read it back again and think "well this here and here actually doesn't make sense, this is terrible".
I think I fixed it without changing much. I'm not going to point out exactly what it was in hope of most not noticing it.
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Great to see this back.
Accidentally used a period instead of a comma there. Or forgot to capitalize the first word of a sentence.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
People who appear in this update:
- Hana.
- Fauri.
- A couple of birds.
- A couple of AIs.
- And whatever the heck Metafalica really counts as, apart from 'sister'.
Places that appear in this update:
- Ar Ciel.
- Crysanthemum, and Crysanthemum's allies.
- Greenfly.
- And zero mention of Earth, as those were edited out.
Naming is the hardest problem in programming. Naturally, it is one I've given a lot of thought. Etymology is such an interesting subject.
- Hana.
- Fauri.
- A couple of birds.
- A couple of AIs.
- And whatever the heck Metafalica really counts as, apart from 'sister'.
Places that appear in this update:
- Ar Ciel.
- Crysanthemum, and Crysanthemum's allies.
- Greenfly.
- And zero mention of Earth, as those were edited out.
Naming is the hardest problem in programming. Naturally, it is one I've given a lot of thought. Etymology is such an interesting subject.
Highwind
To Rise From The Ashes
- Location
- Brazil
Huh. In my first read through I thought Fauri was just a nickname for Hana Metafalica had come up with. Faura means "little bird" while Fhauri is... shine, I think? Almost perfect for an endearing nickname.
But apparently there might have been someone else there and Hana's recollection of the events is still more broken than I thought. Or Metafalica was indeed referring to Hana and her being called Fauri is far more important than I initially assumed. I'm not sure how, mind you, but it should be more than a nickname. Maybe it's a designation for Hana as a Fog-Reyvateil hybrid? There's really no way to know for sure as of now.
Also, I'm pretty sure Metafalica never referred to Hana by name while in a scene. Just "you"s and "Fauri", though this is the first time she calls anyone Fauri.