Conversation Space II.

[powersthatbe]

As Thorne shared with the network, Travelers who vanish find themselves alone in a small room. But it doesn’t look quite as described last time. Paper lanterns hang in the corners, and a lemniscate of live, spicily scented blue roses traces a figure eight on the floor. A little marble plinth sits beside the looping roses, with a champagne flute balanced on it, pink, fizzy liquid quietly effervescing within. In place of the throne that was there before, each half of the loop holds a brown leather sphere - a yoga meditation-ball chair. They’re a little tricky to balance on.


The walls, floors, and ceiling are tiled, a prismatic fade from one color to another, each tile unique, just slightly different in hue than those around it, each colored line giving a sense that it belongs to a bigger pattern, but never revealing enough to allow anyone certainty about what that pattern might be. It is only a glimpse of a larger world… in this small, quiet space.

Comments

[bite_the_hand]

"Stop speaking in riddles! I still don't-! Fine! Fuck it! Just tell me why you didn't stop the others! And give me a straight answer this time, dammit!"

[swinglow]

The Chariot bounces slow and thoughtfully before it finally answers.

"Wished to avoid casualties," it says finally.

[bite_the_hand]

"So you avoided those casualties by torturing my friends!? Just because you can bring us back to life doesn't mean being killed doesn't effect us!"

[swinglow]

"Did not torture," the Chariot replies, bouncing a little faster on the meditation ball. "Not personally. Specify?"

[bite_the_hand]

"But if you didn't stop them, you might as well have done it yourself!" For a tense moment it looks like Eren might resort to blows instead of specifying as requested. But he forces himself to take a deep breath and calm down some. He then begins to count offenses off on his fingers, still bloodied from when his nails had dug into his palm.

"You Trumps take our loved ones away from us without warning or telling us what happened to them! When you do bring them back they might not even be the same people we lost! You brought us to Liminal Space against our will and trap us there! You turn us into other people who do things we'd never do, and we're forced to remember everything they did! We're forced to remember hurting our friends! And our friends have to remember people that look like us hurting them! You send us to worlds where the air itself is full of 'radiation' and other poisons! You make Liminal Space take forms that remind us of things we'd rather forget! When Mikasa came back from Bando she nearly died because you bastards waited until the moment her overlay was injured to bring her back! And I don't even know where to start with what I've heard about Moebius!"

[swinglow]

There is another long pause where the Chariot slowly and steadily bounces, as if thinking about how to address all these concerns. When it does speak, the bouncing steadily increases in speed, reflecting something that might be agitation.

"Do not turn into people. Possess them. Possess the ones closest to you. Ones most like you. Not your bodies. Theirs. Never your bodies. Bodies kept safe. Expectations injure you. You become liminal. Mind works upon liminal space, upon liminal bodies. Bando was not mine. Moebius was not mine. Customary not to interfere with Jaunts not ours."

[bite_the_hand]

There's a long pause while Eren tries to process all of that. When he finally does speak, at first all he manages is a single (but very loud) word: "WHAT!?"

He stands there blinking for another moment, then shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. When he does, his hands start slowly steaming as his powers finally kick in to heal his injuries - a bigger step than the horseperson might realize, As Eren's Titan Shifting abilities require some form of injury to activate. Cairbre will now have an extra second of warning should Eren attack with that particular power.

After that Eren finally decides to have a seat on the other meditation ball. He also finally finds his voice. "Let me get this straight," he says, seriously but less aggressively than before. "When we Infiltrate, you've got our bodies hidden in Liminal Space somewhere, and you put our minds inside of those people? Why!? What good does that do!? And why do they look like us!?"

He sighs, and uses Liminal Manipulation to create a small cloth to clean the blood off of his hands. "So Mikasa was only hurt because she expected the wound to still be there. Are you trying to tell me that was an accident then!? Whichever one of you was in charge of Bando should have realized that would happen!" And that's when something seems to click in his mind. "Wait... Are you saying our bodies have been turned into the same stuff Liminal Space is made of?"

[swinglow]

"Not the same," Chariot says. "But more liminal. More mutable. Effect of liminal space. Liminality, thought, both intertwined. Allowing form changes. Allowing Jaunt effects to pass over. Yes. Bodies kept safe while minds possess. Influencing those possessed. Appearance can be point of commonality. Connected minds can aid recognition. Tower is Tower."

[bite_the_hand]

His hands now clean, Eren sets the bloodied cloth to the side for Liminal Space to reclaim. He then raises one hand to run his fingers through his hair as he makes a sound that's almost a growl. Thankfully, there's more frustration to it than threat.

"Half-Liminal, then." That makes a lot of sense to him really. At least it'd sure explain a hell of a lot. And if they can influence Liminal Space, well, why shouldn't Liminal Space be able to influence them right back?

Unfortunately, the way Infiltrating works on the mental end sounds like more of a Telepathy thing, which doesn't make nearly as much sense to him. There's a reason his ability to influence the Network only got as far as the power to yell directly into people's heads. Even so, he's going to try to follow up on the topic. Maybe Armin can at least learn something from it later. "We must not influence them much, because the people my head gets stuck in have done lots of things I'd never do. How is that better than letting us just stay ourselves?"

Then Eren's voice takes on a sharp edge again, although this time that animosity is not directed at the Chariot. "This 'Tower' is one of you? And they're the one that let Mikasa get hurt?"

[swinglow]

"Ranked sixteenth. Chaos. Sudden change. Disruption. Downfall. Ruin. Ran recent Bando Jaunt with Judgement. Influence is variable. Some more receptive. Some less."

[bite_the_hand]

Well that certainly cemented Titan-punching the Tower as one of Eren's life goals.

"I still don't understand why sticking us in other people's heads is better than just letting us be ourselves! Or why you have to take away our freedom by trapping us in Liminal Space in the first place! What do you want from us!?"

[swinglow]

The Chariot bounces silently for a while as it thinks how to answer. "Mutability. Physicality. Wild card. Way forward. Must see Synodiporia through to end."

[bite_the_hand]

"That still doesn't answer my question!" Eren jumps up before he realizes what he's doing, but after that he stops himself from doing more than grinding his teeth frustration. He's honestly starting to wonder why he keeps trying to ask it questions, but he's not quite ready to give up yet. "But why do you need to keep doing this 'Synodiporia' thing!? What happens if you don't see it through!?"

[swinglow]

"Events already in motion are difficult to stop," Chariot says. "Synodiporia was set in motion, must remain in motion. Must reach the end. Must achieve the World. If not I, another. Loss began this cycle. Arcana unbalanced. Want to be whole again. For power, possibility, and primacy, yes. But for many, also wholeness."

[bite_the_hand]

Eren needs to take a moment to think about this, slowly sinking back onto the meditation ball as he does. He still does not trust the Trumps, and is not sure how much of what this one says can be believed. Yet he's inclined to assume it's telling him the truth. Call it a gut feeling. Although Eren does have to question whether the Trumps are united after all, since the mechanical horsperson seems more concerned with finishing what's been started than it is with being the victor.

"Sometimes stopping something in motion is worth the effort," he says finally. But he does not wait for a response to that statement, and instead immediately asks his next question, intense stare never wavering and never breaking eye contact. "What was it you lost?"

[swinglow]

"Cannot," Chariot says, bouncing along on its own medicine ball. "Not in my nature. Can only go forward. Hanged Man, Pendu, it stops. Not I. I am the ever-turning wheel. You move forward too. Always keep going. Reason why you're my Chosen."

Its bouncing speeds up. "Temperance. Fortune. Hierophant. Star. No balance, no luck, no group-bond, no hope."

[bite_the_hand]

"That's not what I meant by stopping." The words don't quite come out as a growl or a frustrated sigh, but rather as something in between. Shit, how should he explain this? "...Where I'm from, the only way to move forward is by stopping the Titans from advancing. We stopped Wall Rose from falling when those bastards attacked Trost. We fought with everything we had, and a lot of people died, but humanity won its first victory against the Titans that day! Putting a stop to something doesn't mean you stop with it. It means you can keep going the way you choose without being carried through life by God or fate or whatever else people blame when they're too scared or lazy to fight!"

His eyes narrow as the names of the dead Trumps are listed off. And, presumably, what qualities each of them represented or looked for in their Chosen. But dead is dead, so what the hell does this one mean when it says completing the cycle will make them whole again? "You're trying to replace them somehow?" That's the best guess he's got anyway.

[swinglow]

"Many are," Cairbre says. "The World has the power to."

[bite_the_hand]

"How does it do that?"

So while there is conflict, most of them are trying to replenish their numbers. ...Which brings up another important question. "And what are the ones that don't want to replace them fighting for?"

[swinglow]

The Chariot takes a long while to reply, its bouncing agitated, "Don't know. Not everyone shares plans. But the World can make thing anew."

[bite_the_hand]

Telling him the World - whatever it means by that - can make something anew does not answer his question. But Eren's figured out by this point that trying to press on the matter won't do anything but make him increasingly more frustrated, so he should pursue the answers to other questions. Which is also very frustrating in its own right but does at least seem to be more productive.

"So who are you working with to replace them? Who are you working against?" Then suddenly Eren's expression becomes more intense, and it's easy to see why he'd once been described as having fangs in his eyes when he glares like that. "And what about the Travelers marked by the others? Are you expecting us to fight each other!?"

[swinglow]

"Not I. Not particularly. Some. Devil. Tower. Enjoy blood. Enjoy disaster. Even then not guaranteed. Expect you to keep moving. Do want to bring lost four back. Especially Fortune. Friend. Almost all would bring back. Perhaps not Tower, Devil. Battle of ideas, not arms. Working against Hanged Man. Antithesis. Mutual non-understanding."

Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce.

[bite_the_hand]

"Devil? What have they been responsible for?" He's wary of them already, even without an answer. The fact that Devil is mentioned alongside Tower, and as wanting bloodshed among the Travelers...

But that knowledge also makes Eren more relaxed with his current company. "I will never turn against my friends. But as long as you don't expect me to, maybe we can work together to stop Devil and Tower from trying to do shit like that. Besides, if all you want from me is that I keep moving, I don't exactly have a choice." To stop moving is to stop fighting. To stop fighting is to wish for death. He'd been there, once - but never here, never as a Traveler. So as frustrating as it is to continue doing something that a Trump wants him to, it's not something he can simply stop doing.

[swinglow]

"Yes. You were the right Choice. I am glad."

Cairbre bounces thoughtfully before adding, "Loss. Set bloodshed terms that sent Travelers to Moebius."

[bite_the_hand]

He was going to give a complaint about that first comment. But before he can, the second part of that gets his undivided attention.

"Moebius!?"

Eren jumps to his feet, eyes blazing with fury. His words come out as a snarl. "They're the one that sent everyone to Moebius!? They're the one that tortured my friend!?"

He's shaking in rage now, every fiber of his being demanding vengeance. But for now the target of his anger is beyond his reach. His instinct is to go charging forward, to cut down anyone and anything in his path. Further proving Cairbre's point about him being the right choice, but Eren doesn't care about that anymore. In fact, this might drastically change his opinion in Cairbre's favor...

It takes Eren a long moment to calm down, and even then calm is a relative term, still too agitated to sit down again. He does not yell again, but his voice sounds more dangerous for it. "And this Devil is one of the ones you're working against? You want to stop them and Tower more than any of the others, because they're the only ones that might not save your friend, right? And you want my help to stop them?"