Author: Lurina

236: Love and Inventing Hell (𒐅) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

"Hello, Ptolema," Kamrusepa said, just north of neutrally.

"Hi." She held up a hand weakly.

The room was silent for a moment. I looked between the two of them, then cleared my throat. "Uh, sorry," I said. "Kam and I were talking about something up in the City, and I figured it'd be okay to invite her back here. I probably ought to have asked, though."

"Nah, it's no big deal," Ptolema replied. "I made this cabin for you, so-- 's none of my business." She scratched the back of her neck. "Probably shouldn't have barged in like that, though. That was kinda rude."

More silence.

Ptolema looked away from me. "How've you been, Kam...? Long time no see."

"Oh, you know," the other woman replied cordially. "Same old, same old. And you?"

"Pretty good, I guess."

I looked between the two of them again.

What's with this energy right now? Why does this feel so... If it were just awkward it would make sense, but...

"You guys, like, doin' good?" Ptolema asked.

"I-- I suppose, " I said. "What were you going to say?"

She blinked. "What?"

"When you came into the room, I mean."

She looked mildly confused and surprised, as if the period of time I was referencing happened days ago, as opposed to about 30 seconds. "Oh. Oh, yeah-- Nora just wanted me to apologize to you, since she felt like she was bein' kinda a jerk."

"Ah." I hesitated. "That's fine. I wasn't offended or anything."

"Cool. I'll, uh. Tell her when we talk later."

My eyes wandered towards Kam, I noticed she was looking at Ptolema oddly. Not with hostility, exactly, but with a mix of puzzlement and guardedness. Like she'd come in wielding a historically accurate broadsword, or something.

"So," Ptolema digressed. "I was... gonna ask if you wanted to have lunch? But you can join us too, Kam. If you wanted."

"That sounds delightful," she replied. "What were you intending to make?"

"I was thinking like a chicken and chili avocado wrap thing, maybe with some eggs." She hesitated. "Are you still vegetarian, Kam?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I could do it with beans instead, then. Or like. Potatoes or tofu."

"Either potato or beans would be fine, thank you."

"That's-- That's great, then." Ptolema pursed her lips. "Are you the kind of vegetarian who doesn't eat eggs?"

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'vegan'."

"And no," she clarified. "I do eat eggs. On occasion."

"Okay," Ptolema said with a slow nod. "Great. That's what I figured."

Things continued along these lines in the kitchen as Ptolema prepared the meal, the conversation existing in a sort of superposition where it was both happening and not happening at the same time, circling around topics such as Ptolema's longer haircut, her pigs and life in the Valley generally (notably, Kam did not see fit to levy and criticism in this case), and whether or not having an air fryer in one's kitchen was worth it. I participated as well, putting forth my 'opinions' that I felt long hair looked better on almost everyone, that I hadn't actually seen any other animals (except the ones which were people) yet, and that I didn't really eat fried food.

When the wraps were served - along with a side of fried potatoes and a pot of coffee - we ate rarely in silence. As we did, it occurred to me that this was the first time I'd sat with more than one member of our class at once since arriving in Dilmun. Though I guess that wasn't actually so remarkable. I'd still only met four.

After we were done, Ptolema smiled and looked towards Kam. "Y'know, I was really surprised when I heard Su had run into you!" she said. There was something restrained about her voice. "I haven't seen you since before we all moved into the Crossroads."

"Is that so?" Her eyebrow arced. "I thought we met once at that little reunion Fang organized in the Keep a while ago."

"Oh yeah. That." She sucked on her cheek, glancing to the side. "Well, even so, it wouldn't have hurt for you to drop by every once in a while, y'know? Come to one of the festivals, or something. People have been wondering about you."

"Have they," Kam said with neither skepticism nor surprise. "I thought they might have had quite a good idea about where I was."

"Uh, I mean. In theory. I more meant how you were doing."

"Mm, my experience is that it's unkind to venture into places where one might make trouble for others," Kam told her. "No one likes a party guest who can't read the room, even if they were invited."

"That's-- I mean. I guess."

"You could have sought me out, I'm sure."

"Well. That's true."

This was becoming unbearable. Why was this so tense? Neither of them had mentioned having any manner of grievance with one another. Well, Ptolema had acted maybe a little too pleased at the idea of me murdering Kam, but that was just friendly banter. And I guess Kam had been a little bit stiff when I'd mentioned I was living with Ptolema, but...

Well, whatever. Whatever the truth, it was very uncomfortable. I was considering just raising the issue directly when Ptolema suddenly turned to me and transitioned to the first topic that seemed as though it might actually be going somewhere.

"So, Su, what were you talkin' with Nora about, anyway? She didn't say."

"Oh, uh." I cleared my throat, setting down the rabbit-themed mug I'd been sipping from. (Ptolema's cups were all decorated with either commemorations of sports events or cutesy animal designs. She was the only person I had ever met who did not have a single joke mug, and she seemed confused when I questioned this.) "Well, I wanted to get a better sense of how much the average person here knew about our class and the Order, and she seemed to be the right person to ask, since her job is, uh." I tried to avoid saying 'stalking people'. "Stalking people. B-Based on people's personal interests, I mean."

She frowned slightly. "I thought we talked about all that already."

"We did. I just wanted more an average person's look on it." My eyes wandered downward a little. "But that sort of led us to talking about assimilation failures, and from there I ended up finding out about the whole-- The whole alternate history thing. Or whatever you'd call it."

"That's what she kind of rebuffed me about. So I ended up asking Kam about it."

Kam took one of the few remaining fried potatoes, dipped it delicately in a pot of some manner of tomato-based sauce that Ptolema had laid out, and slowly placed it into her mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed. "Mm, indeed," she said. "I took her to one of the libraries in the City to read the testaments, then we discussed it a little bit."

Ptolema nodded. "That makes sense."

"I'm still kind of reeling from it," I said with an awkward laugh. "I mean. It sounds like something from a conspiracy thriller, doesn't it?"

"Y-Yeah, it's pretty out there," she replied. "It was one of the things I was kinda meaning to talk to you about at some point, since like. People will sometimes reference stuff from it. The, uh, other world, I mean. You've probably heard some stuff already."

"I hadn't really noticed," I said. "I mean, if there's something I don't understand, I tend to just assume it's part of the local culture in some way or another."

"That figures," she nodded. She raised an eyebrow slightly. "So you guys were talkin' about that in there? I hope I didn't interrupt in the middle of it."

"Er, no. We moved on to other things a while ago."

"As a matter of fact," Kam spoke with a slight raise of her voice, stirring her black coffee gingerly and rhythmically, "we were about to share our accounts of the conclave. Since you're here, you're welcome to join us if you with, Ptolema."

There was another brief silence, though this one felt almost like time had stopped. Neither of their expressions seemed to change whatsoever. For a moment I wondered if something actually supernatural was happening.

"We already talked about that," Ptolema finally said.

"Did you?" Kam raised her eyebrows, then glanced towards me. "Is that so, Su?"

"Um. Yes." I tried to push through the atmospheric miasma and recall what she'd said to me. "You told me about how you found letters outside your doors claiming the Inner Circle had already been murdered, and then you were lured out and shot in the head."

Ptolema was nodding along eagerly.

Kam pursed her lips. "I was thinking we might go into somewhat deeper than broad summary," she said. "Try and go through all days one by one and highlight the events of note, that sort of affair."

"I-- I dunno," the other woman replied. "I don't really see the point in dredging up a bunch of old stuff."

"Do you not?" Kam inclined her head. "Pardon, I didn't intend to put you on the spot. We'll just head back over there in a little while, then."

Ptolema fidgeted slightly, while Kam took another sip. I realized I hadn't touched my coffee at all, and drunk a little bit myself.

"Kam," Ptolema said slowly, "Should you, uh... I mean, it really is good to see you again and everything, but..."

"You ought to be careful with buts, Ptolema," Kam interjected casually. "They say that everything which lies behind them is--"

"But should you really be getting Su wrapped up in this?"

She raised a brow. "Getting her wrapped up in what, pray tell?"

"You know what I mean," Ptolema replied, frowning for the first time. "Like, I don't blame you for talkin' to her about it after the game you ran or whatever. Like, she came to you, and we didn't know what the heck was happening with that hourglass and the lady claiming to be god and all that junk, so obviously you'd wanna help out any way you could, but..." She exhaled, a little exasperated. "But she's fine. We figured that out. You know that, right?" She glanced to me. "Sorry, Su, I don't mean to talk about you like you're not here. I just didn't know how to say that."

"I-It's fine," I said automatically. (Was it fine?) "But, um..."

"We did talk about how she's no longer being led to believe she's in mortal danger, yes," Kam clarified as I trailed off.

"Then there's no need to getting her worried about stuff from ancient history," Ptolema said firmly. "She hasn't even settled in yet. She doesn't..." She hesitated, glancing in my direction again. "Su, you don't need to be thinking about the Manse. I dunno what's goin' through your head at the moment, but it'll still be there in a few years."

I hesitated. "You probably shouldn't say the word if you can avoid it. Apparently the Waywatch does scan for certain phrases with their arcana sometimes."

"Oh, I shouldn't expect we have to worry about that here," Kam said pointedly.

Wait, what?

"In any event," Kam continued. "I've said all this to her myself multiple times; one of the very first things we talked about is how it's best to try and find a satisfying way of life without resorting to such a drastic extreme. In fact, I was further warning her away just before you interrupted us." She looked at me. "Isn't that so, Su?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, though felt somehow used in the process. "She was telling me that I should be absolutely sure before I commit to anything serious, because it could make it hard to move around and stay in contact with people."

Rather than appearing soothed by this, Ptolema came across as a little put off, holding her hands together tightly.

I wasn't sure I fully parsed it until that moment, but in truth, her and I had been having a sort of silent disagreement about this since I'd gone to Kamrusepa's game, or maybe even since my arrival in Dilmun. I would profess discomfort about life here in some way or vaguely reference the Manse and the idea of how things could be different, and she would counter with some niche way my complaint could be circumvented, or sometimes with an invitation to a social event. I'd attended (or rather, not had a good enough excuse for not attending) a couple at this point, but hadn't really made any connections. We'd gone to a relatively normal play set during the Ironworker's ascent in the early-middle Imperial Era, which had been fine, and to a sort of book fair where people traded media 'experiences' - largely transcending mediums - they'd made among themselves and talked about the current ones which were most popular. The level of self-referential abstraction had been a little too much for me, and I wasn't brave enough to try any of the transcendental full-body experiences that seemed to have been the most popular, so I'd mostly just wandered around the gallery it'd been set in with a stupid expression.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

This wasn't anything new, obviously. I hadn't really ever made friends easily outside of school or work - even in niche hobby spaces, I tended to end up respected but socially at the fringes. But I did feel especially rootless and lost the more time I spent here, like I was joining a club where everyone else had known one another for their entire lives and had history denser than bronze.

"Well... still..." Ptolema eventually said, looking back at Kam. "Even so, you..."

"Even so what, exactly?" She raised an eyebrow. "I'm letting her make her own decisions, when she insists? She's an adult, no matter how you count it."

"Yeah, but... I dunno, don't you think it might be better to give it some space?"

"In what sense?"

I mean, if you put a big frosty baklava down in front of somebody hungry and then go, 'are you sure you wanna eat that?', obviously they're gonna eat it, y'know? Even if maybe they shouldn't."

"Okay this is getting a little weird," I said quickly.

Ptolema looked both anxious and apologetic. "Sorry, Su. I really don't mean to be condescending. I'm just worried you've gonna have a hard time and end up crashing out." She furrowed her brow. "I've seen it happen with dreamers before. They'll show up, not be able to get their footing, and up and vanish again after just a few years. Some people end up in a loop like that for-- Well, for a really long time."

That didn't surprise me to hear. Because of the static nature of this world, Primaries predisposed to being miserable presumably stayed miserable, unless they hit a good run, and even that would only last for so long. (Another foreboding thing about how reality worked here.)

But it felt like there was something she wasn't saying.

Kamrusepa took another assertive sip of tea, then glanced at me, speaking with a little more an edge to her tone. "I wasn't going to ask, Su, but how did you two happen to reunite in the first place?"

I was pretty sure I'd told her this already, and I was pretty she knew that. "Somebody from the Waywatch dropped me off here."

"Fascinating," Kam replied, looking back towards Ptolema. "With that in mind, it does strike me as a tad bit hypocritical of you to make that sort of argument, Ptolema. Unless we're operating under pure argumentum ad populum - an outlook which, need I remind you, has left over a hundred thousand people living as unwitting cavemen over in the Magilum - then the Valley and its way of life is hardly some state of baseline neutrality. Becoming a full citizen here is also not without its consequences, and yet you're clearly orienting the prospect like a 'big frosty baklava', as you so put it."

Ptolema glared. "C'mon, Kam, that's dumb. We're talking about her living a normal life here, havin' lots of people like her around. You can't act like numbers don't mean anything."

"But it is a choice," she insisted. "And I doubt you've ever once framed it that way."

"Sorry, hold on," I cut in. "Kam, are you accusing Ema of expecting the Waywatch to have brought me to her?"

"Maybe not 'expecting'," she said. "But I would hardly be surprised if she ordered it once she heard that you were in the Domain."

"That's-- That's not how it works," she said. "They really did just dump her here outta the blue. Probably didn't know what else to do with her once they heard the name." Her voice grew a little smaller. "I mean, I would've wanted them to. But still."

"Ordered?" I frowned. "Why would you think Ptolema was giving them orders?"

Kam raised her eyebrows, while Ptolema stiffened a little.

"Oh," Kam said. "Oh goodness. You haven't told her."

"Told me what?"

Ptolema spoke up quickly. "Su, you know I've never really liked to make a big fuss 'bout stuff--"

"Ptolema is a member of the Crossroads Central Assembly," Kamrusepa explained. "A founding member, as a matter of fact, holding one of the 10 permanent seats."

My eyes widened in shock. I looked towards the woman in question, who wore an uncomfortable and mildly guilty expression, turned away evasively.

Obviously, it was true; there was no point in further confirming that. So I just went straight to the point. "I... why didn't you..."

"It's not like I was trying to hide it, I just--" She cut herself off, her face flushing a little. "I mean, it was just awkward. At first I didn't wanna freak you out by lumping saying 'oh, and also I'm some super big deal in this new and scary place you've ended up in' on top of everythin' else, since I thought it'd just make you feel more alone. I was gonna tell you as soon as you'd settled in." She scratched her cheek. "But then, like... You had that whole freakout about thinking you were gonna die, and wanting to see the Manse, and I thought if you knew you wouldn't trust me... And then you kept finding stuff you didn't like about how things worked here, and it just ended up feeling even more weird to bring it up outta nowhere."

"R... Right," I said uncertainly.

It did kind of make a lot of sense, now that I thought about a little. There had been parts of Ptolema's situation that'd been odd since the start. She was constantly out for prolonged periods of time, had never seemed the least bit concerned about sheltering someone under investigation by the authorities, and seemed to have numerous connections despite far from any real civilization.

Most of all, it'd felt very odd that, despite still clearly being suspicious of me, Governor Cyrene had let the investigation drop. She was the governor. There was only really one group that could have conceivably overruled her.

Still, though...

"You told me you moved here from the Keep only a few hundred years ago, though."

"No, that was true," she said quickly, then looked at her clasped hands. "I was part of the-- Well, it was only a few dozen of us initially. Who were weirded out by how serious people were getting in the Magilum, and wanted to make kinda an alternative space where..." She hesitated. "I mean, it wasn't there was even a plan. It was just one of times where some goober with a dumb grievance is like 'this sucks, let's hit the bricks!' and throws together a little club where the people they don't like aren't allowed. It was a fringe Domain for thousands of years. Nobody ever thought it would get big."

"But it did," Kam said. "Because it happened to be in the right place at the right time."

"Yeah." Ptolema nodded weakly. "After everything blew up, people wanted a Domain with really strict about memory stuff and roleplay, and that wasn't strict about how you could do with your prop. Even then, there were still like, I dunno-- Probably like a hundred over ones it coulda been. But the guy in charge at the time, Ardin, was really good with people, and knew some celebrities..." She shrugged. "So things got rolling, and suddenly, boom. This became the place to ditch the Magilum for."

"But, you're saying you didn't have anything to do with that?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Not really. I bought in at the start because a couple of my friends from back then did, gave 'em a heap of prop, then checked in every so often, tried to help out a little bit." She frowned. "Then everything blew up, and suddenly there was all this pomp. It wasn't good enough to just have a clique of veterans and a couple custodians running things, they wanted a government, all this other stuff... I didn't really want anything to do with it, and by then, I was already deep into academia stuff in the Keep." She took an enthusiastic sip of coffee. "But I'm not good at tellin' people I don't wanna do stuff, so I never took my prop out. So... one thing just kind of let to another,"

"So," Kamrusepa said, halfway folding her arms against the table, then raising one to gesture with her forefinger. "You're telling us that you were grandfathered into a leadership position you never even cared about to begin with, simply by virtue of it being too socially awkward to relinquish any sort of commitment."

"I mean... I guess." She laughed nervously. "When you put it like that, it makes it sound like I didn't have the guts to cancel a gym membership or something."

"It's an endearing little story, to be certain." Kam narrowed her eyes. "However, I'm not sure to what extent I find it believable. For instance, I know - it being a rather celebrated matter of historical record, here - that the permanent seats were all filled at the time of their conception. The transitional council sought to prevent the very outcome you describe, where someone who already had no interest in the Domain could find themselves elevated merely by virtue of seniority."

She glared at Kam. "I'm simplifying a lot, okay? We're talkin' about the last, like, 8000 years." A little huff escaped her nose. "I did try to get involved at first. I'd never been in charge of anythin' in a big Domain before, and I was curious how it would go... I don't have zero vanity."

"I know for a fact you've been involving yourself quite readily of late." Kam added. "I'm surprised Su was able to miss it. You have an active voting record. And you've been extensively involved in the Crossroads efforts to maintain nominal suzerainty over many of the middle Domains, plus of course the Prism."

Ptolema shifted uncomfortably. "I mean... I wouldn't say extensively involved." She took a breath. "But yeah, I mean, I did end up back here, and after that-- Well, I felt like I had some responsibility, some need to do something for how bad things have got."

"Bad?" Kam raised an eyebrow. "In what sense?"

"In all the senses. Obviously the culture had got kinda weird. Lots more rules. Lots more people dug in and making everythin' hierarchical and exclusive and pushing others around to make themselves feel better. Taxing people even more prop to sign up, 'cause they're huffing their own farts and think weird stuff like having the soil in the Valley go more than a meter deep without any tricks matters." She shook her head. "It's not something most people know about yet, but the amount of citizens has been dropping since I even got here. Faster lately. At this rate, it'll start to cascade within another couple hundred years, and with the way things are right now, there probably won't be another hegemony for thousands."

Kam snorted. "What of it? That's the natural way of social systems." She traced a finger around the edge of her cup. "How does it go again? The empire, once united, must divide? Separation begets convention, convention begets paroxysm, etcetera etcetera."

Ptolema looked irritated at Kam's flippancy. "It's easy for you to say that, when you're off on your own in some weird corner of the world." She grimaced anxiously. "I remember the last time there was no hegemon, during the fight between the Garden City and the End of Time Hotel. It was horrible. Everyone I knew lost touch with so many people, 'cause everybody had to pick a side if they weren't gonna basically exile themselves from civilization. And it could be even worse, like when things were balkanized before the Keep's heyday." She sighed. "It's so easy for things to fall apart here, to force everyone to make choices. I just wanna stop that from happening."

"Again, it feels just a tad too cute," Kam criticized alongside a skeptical hum. "You can't tell me you haven't bought into the local philosophy - or aren't enjoying your influence - to some extent. That your feelings about the Manse underlying this conversation are entirely motivated by concern for Su's welfare " She peered. "I know you, Ptolema of Rheeds. Lest you forget."

"Please don't get into an actual fight," I said tersely. "I'm having a weird enough day already. I don't want to be stuck between that on top of everything else."

Ptolema was making an odd expression, her green eyes fixed on something invisible on the table in front of her. "It's not like I even have any influence. Nobody votes with me in the assembly. They'd have got rid of me as soon as I showed back up if they could, with the elected members pushing for the rest of the permanent ones to go too."

"Why did you come back, anyway?" I asked, furrowing my brow. "If it had been so long?"

She looked up. "A few reasons, I guess. I already mentioned the thing about some of my friends in the Keep all falling out. And I owed Ophelia a favor, at the time... couple other things too." She sipped from her cup.

"What sort of favor?"

"She was tryin' to do the same thing Kam is," she explained. "To figure out the Manse."

"We know that already," Kam told her. "She's an active participant in my group."

"Figures," Ptolema grumbled.

"That explains the paintings that you showed me, that you both did," I remarked.

"Yeah, that was part of it," Ptolema said with a nod. "But she wanted to do a really deep dive with me on, well, pretty much everything. Go through most of our whole lives out in the Reflection together, try a bunch of weird stuff to recover lost memory." She pursed her lips. "It was all kinda out there, honestly. I dunno how much it actually helped. Set her up with some other people from the conclave in the Domain room."

"You must have owed her a really big favor to do that much."

She gave a nervous laugh. "Y-You could say that..."

Hearing this, she sounded even more determined than Kamrusepa, which made me wonder: Why would Ophelia want to solve the Manse? She'd didn't have the same sense of ambition. It was hard to imagine what she would be doing in 'paradise' except trying to alleviate as much suffering as possible.

I guess that could be exactly it. Humanitarian causes.

"You're mad at me," Ptolema said. "I can't blame you. I-- I shoulda told you, at least after the game. It's weird that I didn't."

"I mean, it is weird," I replied, my lips flattened. "But I'm not... mad, really. More just perturbed." I hesitated, saying something that felt a little reductive, but felt true on an emotional level. "I didn't think of you as the type of person who could really keep up a lie."

"Everyone keeps up lies," Kam said matter-of-factly. "Though, I do have to comment once again that I don't think this was an especially well-kept one."

"Ugh, can it, Kam," Ptolema shot. She made a soft groan. "I'm not some pure angel, y'know, Su."

Not quite what I was thinking.

"I get worked up and neurotic about goofy things too. How people see me, whether I'm gonna lose stuff, even if it's not really stuff," She leaned forward, resting her head on her hand. "I just wish I didn't have to worry about everything. Even though nothing really goes away here, it's like people take any excuse to try and rip it all up anyway. To make up reasons to fight. I wish everyone could, I dunno, chill out and be happy."

"Well, it's certainly no mystery why you like to keep pigs," Kam mused.

"Oh, screw off! They're not even my pigs!"

"Do you really think there's nothing wrong with this world, Ptolema?" I asked. "Even with the Tertiaries?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Like, if people are immortal, they're gonna miss other people, right? Or even just get bored of each other, sooner or later." She twisted her mouth to the side. "And it's not like you could just have infinite people... No matter what part of the universe you're talking about, there's no such thing as infinite everything."

"There could have been," Kam said. "If the Order had realized their design as they originally intended. If it hadn't been jeopardized somehow."

Ptolema was shaking her head. "Man, I dunno. When we lived out there, Kam, you were always sayin' how we needed to beat biology, beat physics. And we did, somehow! And you're still not happy. You just want something to beat! Everybody just wants something to beat."

I couldn't help myself from snickering.

Ptolema looked at me funny. "What?"

"Nothing," I said quickly.

She wrinkled her nose, then looked back towards Kamrusepa. "Kam..."

"I'm not going to shut her out just because you want to keep everything you have some sentiment towards preserved in a perfect little pen, Ptolema." The words had a tint of the imperious to them. "It is the nature of people, the nature of life, to strive. You cannot reject that truth."

I looked at her a little uneasily.

"You're makin' this into some weird high-minded moral thing," she replied in irritation. "It's not."

Kam didn't reply this time, just looking at her with her arms folded.

Ptolema turned back in my direction. "Su, you wanna meet with Ran, right?"

I felt like a flinched a little bit from having it brought up all of a sudden, but still managed to see where she was going. "I'm... really not going to do anything rash," I assured her. "Not for a while. We're just talking. That's all."

She stared at me for a moment, then sighed softly. "Alright," she said. "Whatever you say."

Even if I was supposed to be on her side, something about the coldness - and beyond that, the sheer absolutist absurdity - of Kam's sentiment did bother me. Looking down on Ptolema just because she didn't want to lose things. Framing progress as desirable, not for because of its ends, but for its own sake.

It was a little... dogmatic. Scary. Even though she'd effectively told me the same thing just a half hour earlier, it felt like I'd seen a side of her in a more naked way all of a sudden.

And... now that I was thinking about it, would even Kam and I remotely agree on what we wanted to change about this world?

Perhaps we had some desires in common. Tertiaries seemed like a no-brainer, of course, and she didn't seem fond of flippancy about selfhood as it related to forming meaningful connections either. (Actually, based on how she was in the Remaining World, that might have been true beyond my own hangups to a perhaps concerning extent.) And obviously she didn't want to bring back death.

But like-- Beyond that, her ideas were probably something completely crackpot! She'd spoken of the limitations of this world, but what did she consider a 'limitation'? Beyond aesthetics, was she one of those people who thought the idea of the Iron Princes was fine except for the slavery? I wasn't sure I wanted to have a star's energy in cognitive capacity.

And how would she make room for people to continue to 'strive'? These all suddenly felt like pressing questions.

Perhaps more pressing still, though, was the thought that everyone in her organization would be this way. How did they even work together? Was the idea just to get as close to the truth as possible, and then... hash out some kind of broad compromise together, before someone trusted (hopefully really trusted) went in and pulled the trigger?

Or... would it be more of a rapidfire-backstabbing situation?

After helping Ptolema wash up (well, I helped her wash up, Kam complained about the absurdity of washing up for purely aesthetic reasons) we headed back to room, and she launched straight back into it.

"So, do you want to go first, or should I?" she asked, moving back towards her seat. "Since I've already shared rather a lot one way or another, I think it would be fairer if you did, but I won't stress the issue."

"Actually," I said, "could we do this somewhere else?"

I stopped, looking back at me and frowning. "If you're worried about Ptolema, you needn't be. I doubt she'll take this any further."

"It's not that," I replied. "I-- I want to try going there."

She frowned in confusion. "Going where?"

"To the place you told me about. The Coffee House Domain." I looked at her. "You go there all the time, right? And yet you haven't been thrown out of the Crossroads. Which means it can't be that dangerous."

Her gaze sharpened. "True enough. On top of there simply being too much travel for the Waywatch to monitor closely, it's very easy to obfuscate your destination just by hopping between different Domains on the way." She seemed to be accepting the outcome of this already, standing back up fully instead of sitting down. "But don't mistake good fortune for absolute safety. They have tricks-- There's always a chance of them catching on."

"But a very very small one," I stated.

"Assuming we take the proper precautions," she said with a nod.

I took a breath. "I want to see it, then," I told her, rashly. "Ptolema's not completely wrong. I don't want to drag this out, to keep myself from making any kind of life here, if it's just going to turn out to be something that feels like a terrible idea once I start really dealing with it in practice. So I want to rip the band-aid off."

"Take a little tour of the lion's den?" She smirked. "Fair enough."