abraxaslogs | Reality doesn’t always give us the life that we desire

Sabine doesn't look too taxed to be told the woman is straightforward. It's better to know what she's going into when that meeting takes place, and who better to tell her than someone who's known her their whole life? He's relating it as a warning, an inherent suggestion of another option, but it's not a reference against who Yen is. It's a careful line; in many ways, Sabine recognizes how she might speak of Jack at specific points.

Protective, understanding, honest, a little warning, but no insult.

She catches the murmur, though not the words, but the prickle across the more of her than contains itself in such a small space as she appears that catches it more. She doesn't look around her. Two decades spent living this life and form, she's chosen, and has no regrets in the constant choosing of, in the being returned to when waking up here, means she's good at this.

(She'll pick Jack every time; body or not.
It doesn't matter if he doesn't remember that.)

Her gaze narrows shrewdly, curious, sidestepping his well-worded warning for the first response. "Is that one of the things you teach your students?"

Edited 2023-05-09 20:26 (UTC)

"I try to tell every new person to Thorne if I can. A few months ago we had a Thorne-only meeting in my Horizon domain to discuss our situation, but new people keep coming."

Unless he wants to throw one of those every single time, it's not possible to keep on top of it. And Istredd is too tired to do that on top of his public mingles. He has noticed other people try to help the new people, but she and John were the only ones this time, and they came when no one was available to guide them. It's not teaching so much as leveling with them.

"We're in a precarious situation because Thorne has been known to jail or experiment on Summoned in the past. And they started investigating people for displaying any behavior they didn't like after the Queen ordered the attack on the Free Cities. That was after Yenenfer was attacked and the Queen's lover died."

Istredd was not one of the investigated, but Lucifer and Wilhelm were questioned. Wilhelm did something that did warrant a conversation, not that he would have wanted Thorne to look closer into the boy.

Sabine had meant the spell, but she supposed she hadn't been all that clear in the reference. By the time he's headed into his answer, she's too polite to correct the misunderstanding and problematically just as interested in everything else he has to say, too. The scourge of the need to know so much more from the so little she had to start with.

"Where exactly are people's real loyalties here, then?"

Even stating it so simply, she doesn't expect that the question has any easy answer and that some part of it boils down to survival by whatever means. Which would give her cause to question most of the conversations she's had on these grounds so far and what was happening under everything that was being seen.

"I don't know. I can't speak for everyone. I would say I think our loyalties lean toward the rest of the Summoned, because none of us can trust our factions, and as a group, we're the only people who can understand this experience."

No natives could know what being kidnapped from the universe they belong to is like. Brought here, forced into a system they didn't ask for, connected to the Singularity and magic they didn't expect. Some react to it well. Some people prefer it. But everyone is trying to survive, as she might expect.

"I consider myself loyal to the Summoned and also to the Singularity. I think it is possible it is the key to the future of all spheres, bad or good, and I have been trying to study it since coming here."

To no avail yet. Whatever connection Rhy has eludes him and it's too bad because he wishes he could get that. Perhaps he simply isn't the right candidate, and he will live with that.

"I think it would be foolish to be loyal to any of our factions. They have captured us. We have no way of knowing what their true intentions are."

"Why the Singularity?"

As the roads continued to diverge in the woods. She hadn't expected that to be in there, given that so few people seemed to know and the varied ways those opinions moved because of it. That's a whole extra level of something she needs to figure out if the people who brought them here are in the wrong, but somehow the thing (entity?) that managed it, and connected them all, was good above and beyond them and their first wave adverse means.

"What's happened here with it that you'd feel so certain about it?"

It's the first reference, not related to crazy zealotry, that's made her cool her heels on one of her many on the burner backlog to-do's: find out what it was and why it wanted Jack, why it had removed him from the timeline and the planet previous to what he still had yet to accomplish there.

One of them holding the sway of one whole world's unslaved existence,
and it wasn't the one with opulent fantasy castle towers.

"Theoretically, it is the center of magic in this sphere. Even more theoretically, it is the source of magic to all spheres. If there is even a small percentage of possibility that is true, it must be taken seriously." In his opinion! Istredd doesn't know if it is, but he is going to work with the assumption it can be, because to do otherwise would risk too much. He's not going to play with the potential magical lives of every soul.

"The knowledge about it here is minimal because they die if they go near it. They couldn't study it in person. That's why we're here." Thorne at least has made it clear that is why they started this. The Summoned having a connection to the Singularity made it an open possibility for the first time.

"It is a real entity though. I don't know how to explain it, it's a feeling." At least he can't say more without admitting that he's been there physically, which is still a secret. "Not a living creature as we are, but not a dead object either." He does think most people can sense that by visiting it in the Horizon, but there is still a great deal unknown about it.

Sabine is skeptical of going as far as the center point of all universes, but she can feel a lot coming from this planet, from the more than that is suffused through it. This Singularity. There's something about it that has been tugging at her. She does need to understand what is happening here. She doesn't clarify that he's right about his supposition of its existence and that she has no doubt in that part of it.

But then she isn't a living creature 'as we are' either,
not even if she knows she appears to be that completely.

Standing in plain sight.

"Where would one find out more about it, then?"

Istredd would probably agree he doesn't think it's the center of all universes. He wouldn't be surprised if it's connected to them though, in some way. If it's capable of sending the Summoned back, it must be able to do something that knocks them into their universe. It's all speculation. Istredd would just prefer to assume the Singularity is important enough to protect.

"I can share my research with you. It isn't much but it is the best we have right now." That includes everything he's read in the history or been told here written down. Istredd didn't write down his experience going to the Singularity though because that is ultimately still a secret. Not that he would note all that much different, only Rhy could truly tell details. The rest of them were suffering at the time.

"I spend time at the Singularity regularly in the Horizon too. I haven't noticed any awareness myself, but there are people it responds to differently." Rhy and that other woman that Jack outed, who he met once and she seemed very confident about her opinion of the Singularity.

Two birds with one stone, maybe. Magic lessons and someone to find out more about this Singularity with. It's different, but it's definitely there. She can help but continue to feel it as a large part of the background. Nebulous and omnipresent, unshaped and sensible as of yet. Which is why she needs to know so much more.

"Is it the same? Visiting it in the Horizon and visiting it in person?" She understands a little of the blocks about not being able to leave this place for much more than very official reasons, even to the closest towns. People had been desperate to see all the could of the city where the last celebration had been because they'd never been to it before.

"How do you mean? How does it respond to certain people differently?"

"People cannot ordinarily visit it in person. The Summoned are thrown into the Horizon the moment they get into the crater, so they can't physically get to it. The only time it is possible is during the Dimming in December when the Singularity's power appears to dim temporarily."

Istredd knows that for a fact being someone who did tat only a few months ago. He can't add that it may be dimmed but still extraordinarily powerful, considering it hurt the magic users deeply when they visited. However, he is not the only one or the only group that managed to get there.

"The first December after the Summoned came here, the three factions used them to try and steal caskets of energy from one another. During the winter solstice, it is possible to approach the Singularity, but it is a long journey and would need permission."

Thorne barely lets them go to Nott. It requires influence to get permission. She's new so she doesn't quite know yet how this all works, but she'll learn. Istredd doesn't want to lead her astray to thinking something is possible when it isn't. And the Singularity is dangerous. As for the last part, well.

"There are some people who the Singularity appears to favor or made a bond with. I don't know how many, but there are at least two. Jack Townsend unfortunately outed them not that long ago, so I suppose Rhy would not be surprised if people knew about his connection." Rhy being someone right here in the castle who she could talk to if she wanted. Otherwise he probably would have been hesitant to say anything. Jack sort of buried the lede on that one.

The more she hears about the factions, and their antagonistic antics, the less she likes it. Not that she was trying to, even at the benefit of the doubt, for long at all. Being told you were stuck somewhere and could not leave without references and good cause was suspect enough, but she'd been swayed by the realization of Jack being here. Distracted by his very existence truly, physically near her.

(The thought of him brushing her thoughts,
has her reach out gently, a reflex like breathing

to find where he is, the frenetic shuttle of his thoughts,
the calming—to her—cadence of his heartbeat.)

Sabine doesn't look all too surprised about Jack crossing a faux pas line about sharing; at least not at this point. All these years into the blog's existence and his acquired nature for chronicling any number of things openly. Another of the many things that came about in her absence. A knowing sort of sympathy gilds her features for that relating of his friend exposure.

"What kind of a connection?" Sabine's already wondering if there are easy parallels to back home, to those drawn to the gas station as more than passing transients. The ones who care bear the pure chaotic energy steadily coming from The Rift off the sleeping form of an immortal evil older than their universe.

"I think that's something you should ask Rhy. It would be secondhand coming from me. He's a good man and very easy to talk to." Istredd isn't trying to push her off on someone else, he is trying to be helpful in getting her to where she can get real answers. Rhy did express to them how it felt being there and he's told Istredd more, but it's better coming from his own words.

"I visit the Singularity in the Horizon regularly. Sometimes I'll just read there next to it. I'm not sure if it notices, but I recommend doing so yourself. It does seem to care about us, but to what extent is unknown. It isn't like any of us."

It's not human, or human-adjacent, or any of their type of beings that have thoughts and feelings that are somewhat similar. The Singularity is its own entity. Istredd likes visiting it, but he's experienced nothing in particularly special, even after meeting it in person. It hasn't stopped him though. He finds it soothing to be there. It's the center of magical power, after all.

"I don't agree with Thorne on much, but protecting the Singularity I think is the right thing to do."

Reality doesn’t always give us the life that we desire

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