silversnowfall | [75][action/voiced]

[75][action/voiced]

[It feels like she's been locked in that research room forever. Almost worse than legislative paperwork, turning five small piles of books about various worlds into something that might be useful. Synthesizing data, in a way that felt adventurously real at first before the familiar tedium of it all set in again. And there was more, left undone. There was always more.

Regardless, it will be a while before she attempts another mission. Even one that seems suited to her set of skills. Unlike so many others who go away on missions, Nephry walks herself toward home without difficulty. Thinking to surprise most of her housemates, she stops at the flower shop for something decorative and colorful. Anything to erase the lines of letters from behind her closed eyelids.

Once she does get home, however, there are some orders of business to address.]

Those of you who name your home as a planet called 'Earth': are you aware of just how many different worlds there are that share that name? That share most of a history, often an entire history save for one significant event? It was quite interesting. [Dull hours of reading aside.] Even more interesting that it doesn't seem to be true of most if not all of the other worlds represented here - there is only one Auldrant, for example.

[And now, the heavier news.]

When I returned a short while ago, I...I found Anise's room empty. It appears she has gone home.

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[...Interesting. He leans back on the couch he'd already made himself comfortable on before responding. It was something he'd wondered about as well, after all.]

Yeah. I've met a few people from different versions of 'Earth' already.

[A pause.]

Sorry about your friend, by the way.

Edited 2013-07-06 05:06 (UTC)

[Flower shop, you say? Raine has been working for the better part of the day. When Nephry comes in, she's rearranging some of the plants in the main room, and looks up when the chime on the door indicates an arrival.

There's a face she hasn't seen in a while, a fact that had been noted during her trips to house 1 to check up on Ion's progress.]

... Hello, Nephry. Is there something I can help you with today?

[It's been a while since he's spoken to Nephry. A carefree conversation might be nice on another occasion, but he keeps his tone sobered when he responds.]

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, Miss Nephry. [a pause]

There does seem to be more than one Earth that people speak of. Although it's hard for me to tell sometimes; some of the Earth folks come from years I haven't seen yet, so there are chances they're connected without our knowing.

...I ain't certain I've met many from worlds what are all too different -- [ but he doesn't sound certain. troublingly, the small details are so small that most history books ignore them and most people never learned. who would care about a lone rifleman and his exploits?

sure, there was the magic. and the modernity. but now he's not so certain those things existed or were fated to exist in his world regardless. ]

[She doesn't offer comfort that can't make it right. But she can offer distraction.]

I came here from an Earth, too. I wonder just how many variations there really are. Sometimes, I wonder whether it still exists in worlds where we don't think it does - and if those planets exist in my own world, too.

There seem to me a mix of events that happen at a particular time that differentiate the variations of Earth, as well...

Earth seems to be most commonplace in Luceti, but I would assume that has some sort of reason in how the Malnosso want to escape. I cannot say if other worlds are just as technologically advanced, but a varied spread certainly helps with their chances of finding out.

They didn't give me any possible theories they thought held water. Even if they didn't want to color my perception, it isn't as though I have an "earth" on which to base my assumptions.

They usually never do.

There are obvious facts such as Earth is round and typically there are seven continents with different dialects... but while they may share similar leaders or historical constructs, it would be even more complicated to base assumptions for the fact that it seems timelines diverge and things become different.

There are people here from Earth where a virus outbreak has taken place and there are people here where the only disease outbreak ever to be worried about was the Black Plague centuries before them... Vast ambiguity typically makes theories harder to pin down, especially when those running the place — known and unknown — aren't exactly willing to reveal their intentions.

[The last time Anise was sent home, Ion had been a mess of emotions. His health had been rather poor back then as well, hadn't it? And yet this time, he doesn't find himself filled with the same anguish he felt back then. It's not as though he wasn't sad. Of course he was! He knew all too well what awaited Anise back home, perhaps not even a few weeks after her return. He remembered how she once confided in him, telling him that she didn't want everything they had here to just disappear. And he knew in the back of his mind that it's entirely possible he would never see her again.]

[And yet despite all that, there was no heaviness weighing on his mind. Certainly there were still things he wished he had told her -- things he had no particular reason for putting off, simply taking for granted the fact that she was still here. But all the same, he didn't feel that same overwhelming sense of loss that he did before. Anise had gone home. That's just the way it was. Perhaps it's happened to him so much that by now, losing someone here was just a fact of life?]

[Or perhaps he's finally just gotten to the point where he can accept it, knowing that as long as he remembers the time they spent here together, he hasn't really "lost" her at all.]

[Regardless, the loss of Anise unfortunately still overshadowed the joy of Nephry's return. He's been quiet for most of the night, sitting in the living room and just looking out the window, with one hand aimlessly running through the fur atop Colonel's head.]

Anise... [He recognises the name... when the memory comes to him, there is a hint of sadness in his next statement.]

She... wrote letters to me once.

The other thing I hit on is a lot of worlds which aren't Earth seem to have less countries.

Are you one of those people?

[She thanks him for the apology quietly. Anise, at least, went home to live.]

Yes, thank you, I'm looking for something...bright. [Something that doesn't smell of must or paper or contain the dull brown-maroons of a stereotypcial library.]

For a while I thought it was possible that you all belonged to the same Earth, at different points in time, but some are from the same designated years despite very great differences - the presence of something like "magic" or the complete lack of it, for example.

Some differences "arise" because you live earlier or later in time than others from your exact world. Others are more difficult to arrange - opposite outcomes of the same war, or someone dying in one Earth but living in another.

We have the word, of course. It refers in part to one of the fonons, and is also a synonymous term for the dirt, or the ground. While I was reading all of these Earth things I thought it might just be a string of uncreative discoverers.

It's the other similarities that I think prove me wrong.

[After taking a careful look through Anise's room in case she left messages or other things behind, Nephry spent her earth-free afternoon cleaning up the room. Leaving the empty bed and shelves felt too mournful and empty for someone of Anise's spirit. It ought to at least look the part of a guest room. Once that's done, she joins Ion in the living room, giving Colonel an absent pat when she passes him.]

I'm a little surprised there are no letters.

Where I come from, Earth is considered special.

[At least, in its own solar system, and she's never met anyone beyond that yet. She just knows it was considered the sacred, chosen planet even in the far distant past, when they all watched over it from the moon.]

You were her penpal, weren't you?

May I inquire as to the first thing?

[Ion doesn't notice Nephry entering the room right away -- not until he feels Colonel shifting a bit from being patted.]

...I suppose she just never felt the need to write them. Or if she did, the Malnosso just didn't see fit to leave them behind.

Auldrant is round as well. I'm...not sure I've ever met someone from a world that was not.

It was important enough for the Malnosso to think it warranted study. Those differences.

The obvious, isn't it? Most of them have way more in the way of "magic."

What is obvious in one mind may be impossible to discern in another. Since it appears to be on your mind, why do you think that's so?

Well, the "Earth" I know doesn't have might and magic around. Sure, we've got our fair share of monsters, but nothing like wizards or spells or bending.

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