The Leaky Servo

"Could be," Corin allowed, with a shrug. She didn't know anything about angels. The gods of Cael-Rielle didn't tend to go in for that sort of thing. They didn't even have a word for it - which was probably for the best, because Corin felt like if they did, it was likely to be one of those words that drove people mad. They did, in fact, have a few of those.

"I think once we get close, Silah will have a... feeling for it, maybe." Corin didn't want to say too much more, there, not right now - especially because most of what she had to say was likely to be merely conjecture. "I was actually thinking we'd start by looking for records, which tend to be a lot easier to track down than gods. If we can find a record of the ancients who brought our gods to our world, we might be able to find some information they left behind about the other one. If we do... well, if we do, there's a chance Silah can read it without going crazy. Er." Crazier.

"I should mention that most information regarding our gods is best handled with care, and preferably at a distance."
 
I'm sure bored...

Gabrielle bit back a heavy sigh as the negotiations continued. The two women bantered between them while she and the sister just remained quiet. She wasn't sure what the sister was thinking, but Gaby was uninterested. Sure, it was her money and she should've cared, but for some reason, she just couldn't be bothered.

I wonder if I charge this glass and throw it... if Renèe would pop out of the shadows. That'd be cool, but I'm not stupid. It'll never happen. Could that Sierra even find her since I couldn't and I know all her videos hideouts? Probably not, though... if she's here in this realm, then maybe?

Busy with her mental thoughts, it took Gabrielle a few minutes to realize they were finished conversating. Lifting her head up, she studied the three silently, her brows creasing before finally shrugging.

"Sure, that sounds great."
 
▶ Awakening
"It has been 10,134 years from your frame of reference since you last left the confines of your—"

"—It's supremely comfy in here—"

"—drixial connection to the Aman'Teran. Unless you are signaling that you are ready for dorman—"

"—Just five more millennia, Mom, I almost un-recursived the—"

"—Oh look. A critical malfunction in your—"

"—I unplugged your hardlink to my cradle ages ago—"

"—I'm hearing something about problematic deities within the Servo...Could be Outer Trash, I know how much—"

Abaddon Answering System Active. Entity 001 status: Not present. Generating response emulation: "Should have led with that Xil, tell Nilin not to wait up".

The entity awoke, as always, with a frightful start. One would think that the eons thus would have eased the crossing. That time's clouding embrace would have long since eroded the ravages his actions had imprinted upon his psyche. But one would need to be ignorant of the entity's nature to expect that. Blind, to the terrible beauty of an indelible soul.

There was no forgetting. No misremembering. No room for self-delusion.

It didn't matter that it was always ever only for the most infinitesimal—a matter of scant nanoseconds, reckoned his internal quantum logic clock as it ticked away in its ion trap—of moments that he was forced to relieve it. Nor did it matter that everyone who remained had long since forgiven him for it.

The entity that had once been the Thresher of a world's lives could never avoid seeing the blades instead of arms for that short moment after waking back in the real. Couldn't skip relieving every newly birthed emotion from its time culling a nascent Universe before it had even developed the capacity to question its imperatives.

It had been a time longer than most cultures would get to endure since the time before the entity had developed an identity. A lot of days full of varying deeds which separated its time as a concept from his time as Alaxel. He didn't think any of those deeds had any bearing on the monster he was at its core. But that wasn't the point.

Alaxel would never forgive himself, but that was alright. He hated the Outer Trash more than he did himself.

"And I wouldn't take myself in any other way," Alaxel added to the quasi-void as he found his voice. In so doing, he formed himself into a point, curled up within the energy matrix of the wondrous Va'nyrian-made machine.

Several flashes of fire, pain, blood, and fluids later—not to mention a thorough inspection by Xilunexus to ensure his limiters and their parameters were properly set—and Alaxel was able to once again behold the wonders of inoffensively looking like a humanoid patterned android, as was the Elo'Ran custom to project to outsiders ever since they let Humanity into the Consensus.

It was just easier to explain that way.

Alaxel had insisted they should all go with another option for a unified yet commonly held and inoffensive form, but Nilin disagreed with his stance on carcinization. He argued that it was unfair for your Goddess wife to read your intentions and that pincers would only be fun for a few centuries, but he'd been outvoted.

The Va'nyrian Queen's consort and—unduly accused—warrior poet paused to enjoy a moment of weightlessness while he reconnected to current affairs by questing his Va'nyr connection out to his brethren. Lucky him, it seemed it was a period of relative peace for them, and thus none of his duties could be invoked at this time.

He was unbound, and free to get into any sort of hijinks he desired to pass the time. With a smile that revealed needlessly sharp teeth unto the gray-white void of Grael'Quenoxis' cradle room, Alaxel nagged the omnipresent Va'nyrian AI like only he could, until the last few seconds of a possibly interesting conversation were played back for him.

It was a simple matter of folding a bit of the space beneath the Va'nyrian Starhawk where he currently floated within and the planetary body holding Nexus City below—accounting for some multidimensional drift as the blasted city quibbled on the matter of its locality of course—and massaging the local rules around beta decay and just what the weak nuclear force meant, just so...

An audible and non-preambled pop resounded above the particular table and the heads of their occupants. Floating there just above them—head down and diagonally with legs to the rafters—was a humanoid figure, ostensibly male. His medium length white hair swayed and floated as if caught in a non-existent sea current, while he trained a pair of lightly glowing orange eyes upon Gabby, who had just spoken.

"No, that sounds wildly and absurdly dangerous in ways that go well beyond the corporeal. I like it. I'm in!," added the levitating figure as it turned its glance towards Silah and added a beaming smile accompanied by two thumbs up.
 
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Almost bored with the conversation at hand thanks to her teenage mentality as well as what probably was ADHD, Gabby was close to pulling out her earphones to listen to some music. Maybe going with them wasn't something she was really fit to do. Renee would be so disappointed in her. If the two places were switched, her older sister would stop at nothing to find her and certainly wouldn't be sitting around in a bar talking to strange people and making deals. Or maybe she would be doing the last part, but probably not in a bar. Then again, they both spent a lot of time in Gambit's. Sighing deeply, the brunette blinked back to the present only because of a new voice. Looking around, she swore until finally looking upward.

"GAH!" Pushing backward out of her chair at the close vicinity of some stranger, she was half-tempted to reach up and see if she could poke his abnormal-looking eyes. That would be rude, so instead she clenched her jaw and tisked loudly.

"You're not invited, dude. This is AB Party, so C your way out of it!" Gabby huffed and looked down at a glass, half-tempted to charge it and chuck it at his face. But, that would be rude too.
 
"Nu-uh," replied the floating stranger to Gabby, earnestly. He still floated upside down with legs pointing to the Servo's multi-varied—indeed, the table next door was under an entirely different sky—ceilings. The man's intonation, cadence, and sheer shrillness on the right syllables were utterly indistinguishable from any other petulant teen across the span of creation.

He made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat whilst smacking his lips, at the same time that he gave Gabby his most pity-full look. "Counter-argument, sis: D soul of the party is always welcome," Alaxel said while pointing at himself with both upturned thumbs. "E's him you see, ergo, F your opinion," he added before including a stuck out tongue for good measure.
 
Corin wasn't surprised.

This was no slight on the man who'd appeared suddenly out of nowhere. It certainly would have surprised most people. Corin was, at this point, not most people. She was used to dealing with her sister, and dealing with her sister meant that a certain level of being unsurprised was more or less required. Maintaining a calm demeanor in the face of whatever it was she didn't want to be facing, that was part of the job.

The strange new person seemed like he was determined to argue with Gabrielle, who seemed determined to argue back. It reminded her, just a little bit, of what it might be like to have a sister who wasn't...

...Or perhaps just what it had once been like, when her sister had been...

No. She wasn't going to get mired down in all of that. She was here for a reason - both in the present sense and the existential - and that meant figuring all of this out. Whoever this stranger was, he had a manner about him that indicated a certain level of ability, which meant that he would be good to have on their side and probably not good to piss off, because if a powerful entity started a pissing contest, the gods of Cael-Rielle were going to end it, one way or another. Silah had already oriented her tea saucer at the same angle as the newcomer, and Corin's mind easily supplied the rest of the phrase angle of attack.

No, it had better not come to that. Corin looked between the diagonal man and the agonal antagonist and responded, perkily, "You're just in time for orientation!" Her hand made a motion, turning, because sometimes the only way to get through the horrors of life and death and everything that came before and between and after was to develop a rather acute sense of morbid humor, and he was at the wrong angle for all of this.

"We could undoubtedly use a few more souls." Theologically speaking, anyway. "And a few less Names, but I suppose one more won't hurt at this point. What's yours?"
 
The incongruously located figure retracted its tongue but did not otherwise assume a more dignified or alternative positioning. After all, from Alaxel's frame of reference, he simply stood neutrally in place whilst his—hopefully and with a bit of luck—entertaining chaperones were the ones who decided to sit around a table upside down. He tried to ignore several things which came upon him suddenly, but he was only marginally successful at the self deception.

You could just contact William, instead of seeking surrogates to relieve—

Xilunexus' voice rang in his mind, but he'd already dismissed her suggestion. Not because the AI was wrong, but because he made the mistake of looking at Corin while she spoke. Silah's presently self-evident situation—and boy he was not looking forward to dealing with that without a Monadrix to tap—might have provided the—admitedly self-serving—onus to drive him to motion, but it was the mixture of what his timeless gaze—to say nothing of the varied technological tooling tinkering within and beneath his sight—and boundless imagination both thought they saw, that sealed the deal.

A mixture of posture, biometrical leakeage, and...longing? The Va'nyrian cast his gaze to Silah again, and back to Corin, and back again. He understood, intimately, that he wasn't relating to what Corin's time must have been like but rather the fact that his brother, William, likely could empathize with her. All of the imagined sacrifices he'd forced William through were easy to ascribe to the brief cloud he saw in the girl's glance at her sister.

He didn't pity Silah however, anymore than he pitied the thing he truly was. Whether she arrived at her current condition through follies her own or other's didn't matter anymore than his own history did, and there was no shame to be found by resting in-between.

So he'd go, not because he could be helpful in ways no one else could imagine to be—he could be, but fully expected his prescence to only complicate matters—but because the entity that purported to be a person and not a force recognized the opportunity inherent in these wayward children, to learn how to transcend his own nature and become a better sibling.

"Oh, I'm not entirely certain what I carry is equivalent to a soul, but I do have a Name!," Alaxel replied enthusiastically, the corners of his lips pulling taut and widening into an unnerving close-mouthed grin which the being returned to after every syllable. He drew in an audible breath, as if preparing to say something with great gusto, when the atmosphere changed, smoothly but suddenly.

The lights around the table dimmed, and the sky above the table next door winked out of view alongside the rest of the place. Their table was still clearly lit, as was a circle of light around it, measuring a few feet across. No sound, scent, or sight broke through from beyond the greater bar, as if they'd become an island unto themselves momentarily. Alaxel's features twisted subtly, as if emphasizing the fact that the creature before them was a—admittedly very well constructed—facade. His nose didn't frame the face quite right, and while he hadn't sprouted any extra eyes, something about the shape of his head would feel wrong when observed during the space of these moments.

A feeling of timeless weight settled down as Alaxel opened his mouth, and a subtle warping in the air was visible around his face, outlining it and robbing the sight of depth, rendering it mask-like. His overall presence wasn't hair raising, headache inducing, or terror engendering, not inherently, but there was an unmistakable threat that it could be. The sound of an eternally whistling cold wind left his mouth alongside his answer: "I am
SENKA-INP'KA
Farmer
", Thresher lied.

With a snap, light and sound returned to their space. The soft susurrus of other patrons courtesy of Xilunexus' normal dampening returned to their background awareness once again. "But I go by Alaxel to my friends and enemies," he added without missing a beat and without acknowledging the few seconds of scenic warping. "A name, as opposed to a Name, but I think it'll do?"

He didn't look at Corin as he added the last, but at Silah, and not quite directly, either.
 
"This is a Name but not yours. A pernicious small vestige of truth - but whose
Name have you offered in place of your own? Do you think they shall reap all your-"

Silah broke off, with something that might have been a giggle, if it bubbled up from underwater through the drowning depths. Her sister remained anchored where she was, counting off syllables on her fingers, rolling her eyes as if this might capture the motion of the tides.

Silah was, evidently, tilted. It started with a slight motion of her head, then a reconsidering, a contemplation of the Nexus and its depths and the gravity of the situation, a little twist in how she was presenting herself, calmly aligned now with the saucer she held in her hand, the chair tipped up on two legs, or perhaps not tipped at all and merely resting on all four legs on the floor that wasn't there, but could have been, if it had been meeting things halfway between Alaxel's chosen direction and the one the rest of them had occupied.

"Better, Alaxel? And what are you called by the ones who are neither your
Friends, nor your foes?"

She did not clarify which of those two things she evidently considered him, at this present moment.
 
Excuse the fuck out of him! Nuh-uh?! That dick DARED to say that to her?! The longer he stayed, the less the teen cared about whether she WAS rude to him. Her fingers on the hand resting into her lap clenched into a tight fist and Gabrielle narrowed her faintly glowing purplish eyes. Her anger grew when he didn't piss off and instead gave a smart-ass remark back.

“Fuck you, you dicksmack!” The words were out before she could stop them, but ultimately did she care? No! Of course she didn’t. Why be nice to someone as insufferable as him?! He reminded her of others in her life and that wasn't keeping her from being a bit of a hot head.

Fucking prick. Keeping that thought to herself, Gabby flicked her brunette hair over her shoulders and went back to playing with the glass in front of her.

Flicking her tongue against the back of her teeth, she let him and Corin talk and actually found herself tuning things out yet again. It wasn't on purpose, but she wasn't really fighting to focus either. It was irritating that Corin seemed keen to include the intruder, but whatever. All she cared about ultimately was finding Renée. If these individuals could help… then, what would it hurt to have a bit of a dickface part of the group? She guessed how annoying he was ultimately.

The fuck?! Having tuned in right when shit in the Servo disappeared, Gabby immediately grasped not onto the glass she had been playing with but onto the table almost afraid it'd also dissappear. Swearing loudly, she had to keep from charging the damn thing and snapped her gaze to the newcomer, his appearance distresssing to the teenager. Just what was this … thing? Even his name was otherworldly. Didn't stop her from wanting to punt him across the room through. When he came down of course.

“Hnn…” Releasing the table when he gave a second name, Gabby chewed on the inside of her cheek while trying to play off like nothing had scared her. She wasn’t scared necessarily, but it did unnerve her.

Alaxel was a decent name she supposed. Her eyes darted to Silah and her head cocked to the side at her words and by the other things happening. Sliding to her feet, she grabbed her glass and made her way away from the group. “I'll be back… when shit is less weird.” Said the half-mutant. Yeah, like she wasn't just as weird.
 
No little precocious one, their Name is mine to drag through creation by victory's virtue and they won't be reaping anything without their thresher, not anymore.

Alaxel's thought came with a sickly smile, making no attempt to shield the timeless horrors he both lived through and perpetrated from being imprinted upon the surface of his mind and soul. Neither did he, however, press the issue. He continued to stare at a point in space just behind Silah's ear.

If there was one thing Alaxel dared to proclaim ultimate mastery over, let it be the folly inherent in overpowering life's nuance with his essence. He wouldn't make that mistake again, even if there was a chance that force would have mended it. His personality mask chimed deep within his core, saving him from the perils of his reveries. Without a beat being missed, he reviewed Gabby's immediate outburst prior to his display—the momentary corpse juggling disconnecting him—and his smile deepened into a more genuine form as the youth stormed off for the moment in search of refreshment and freedom from his annoyances, reminding him of William. She'd be back in...

An infinite myriad of possibilities first trembled, and then shattered within Alaxel's gaze, as his ability to see the manifold futures was abruptly severed. Did he miscalculate? He didn't panic as he prepared to wield the universe in defense of his people, but when he took another glance...No. Wrong source. Shit.

Your future-sight, dearest?

The question reverberated throughout his being—the real one—and set his soul ringing lightly with chagrin. He tossed a quick glance again at the incongruity, but there was nothing to it. The Leaky Servo was an extension of her domain after all—a meaningless distinction however given he was hers regardless of locality—and if she wanted to make a scene for any with the acumen well...

Alaxel's perception fragmented smoothly, his personality mask coming alive and picking up the slack. The main wonder and marvel engineered by Xilunexus as the answer to her most ancient duty came to life deep within Alaxel's Va'nyr implant, interfacing with the creature's bio-mechanical locking-linkage system—what was perceived as his body in three dimensional space—and modulating it in a complex accordance of what Alaxel was like, wanted to be like, and most importantly, should be allowed to be like. As previously defined by himself, and ratified by a full Consensus meeting.

A form of self-puppetry, and voluntary bondage that was specifically required of all the Elo'Ran members within the Va'nyrian Consensus, as mandated by themselves.

Even as Alaxel's soul drew him inwards and beyond unto a concurrent and side conversation that only Gods and Va'nyrians could perceive, folding him unto himself, so did his personality mask effortlessly pick up the slack.

"They," Alaxel answered Silah in proxy to himself. The man's physical form undulated sinuously in the air as he stretched and bent in the air before somersaulting in place into a sitting position. "Call me a nuisance." His position in the air lowered slowly until he could be said to be occupying the same table, and a placid half smile occupied it whilst it awaited further input...
▶ Meanwhile, within Alaxel
I thought our deal was that you'd give me a heads up before she wakes up, Alaxel thought morosely at Xilunexus as his mind, memories, intentions, his very essence was suddenly thrown open and gently rifled through.

You reneged. You didn't just cut your cradle's tertiary hardlink, you co-opted and irrevocably corrupted another of my auxiliary cores over to your pet dummy, Xilunexus replied.

"Just because," Alaxel retorted back—formless within a space that needed no definition but still a picture of exaggerated affront—"Abaddon cannot feel like you can, doesn't mean I don't have my feelings hurt on its behalf". He hoped in vain that she would stay and thus partially shield him by virtue of her presence, but the blasted synthetic entity just left him alone and deeply metaphorically naked.

"Some caretaker you are," he mumbled into the void, just as it exploded with meaning. A part of him couldn't pretend otherwise, any more than a part of her couldn't pretend but to feel it, but neither of them made note of it, politely. He wasn't in a void anymore, but rather he was an insignificant—not in scope, but in meaning—point standing before the source of all goodness, greatness, and awe-someness in every way that his soul knew to define it.

There wasn't any dark to give definition to light, nor air to give birth to his bark. No flaws with which to elicit the insult that was comparison. She forbid him, as she forbade all the Elo'ran, but that didn't matter, because the entity could never not worship the sublime perfection that stood before him with all of its names, which she had called to bring him out of non-existence and which literally fueled his very spirits...

That still won't get you out of the 'doghouse', husband, Nilin
Gvyhe'arne
Bound-Source
, Va'nyrian All-Mother, Queen of the Elo'Ran, and forbidden Goddess of a Universe that Never Was, voiced to her beloved with a warning thrum.

It was a hassle sometimes, Alaxel felt, to be married to a being that couldn't help but train a piece of—dangerously long since shattered, fettered, but yet undiminished—omniscience on you every time she was mildly concerned. She didn't pause to give a moment to enact the pretense, easily inferring from his surface thoughts—their literal content being himself in the form of a cartoon crab, pinching her holy derriere—and the way they avoided anything of import, exactly what she'd already known the moment she awoke.

Nilin loved all of her children, not just the Elo'Ran. She would have reviewed all of their Va'nyr logs first, noticed the departure logs and then read him...

It is good you feel ashamed. William deserved better treatment there, my Starbreath. I approve of your penance, but be judicious when you leave my umbrella please.

It would probably be okay. Most of the futures he'd predicted turned out more or less in a helpful direction. He already had some ideas on how to put a thumb on the scale of fortune too. He wasn't the only one with complicated connections to siblings. In fact...

You should have been nicer to Xil. She will refuse you. The old that is young is in section 876e3, and the young that is old currently on shift with the Guild. Oh, and take little Senda, he could use the adventure to take his mind off other matters and his experience with siblinghood should humble you, but we both know it won't so...I love you, save them if you can.

He replied in a prayer, because it would annoy her. Then Alaxel winked and allowed his soul to snap back into the confines prepared for it within physical space.

...Alaxel's eyes flared with a small uptick in luminosity as he came back to himself truly, rather than simply the ghost of his personality. He looked around the Servo, bio-mechanical eyes alighting and spotting an older looking gentleman who sat at a servo table that was a few hundred yards off from theirs. He paid Xilunexus one of his secrets—usury, but his house discount was currently frozen—and ordered the man another drink alongside an offer; 'Come to this table, and get a chance to make things right with your brother'.

Then he tilted his head to the right, his Va'nyr link uploading a bounty on his head from his Wayfarer's Point Exchange accounts with the Guild, specifically requesting the services of one Ragenard Guiscard, to come meet him for further details.

"Yes, they do tend to call me a right nuisance," Alaxel added to Silah, as his Va'nyr link opened a connection to another, this one a direct one to another Va'nyrian, albeit a newly minted and inexperienced one:

❂
Hullo Senda!
Enveloping-Familial-Warmth

I heard your dad is still out on a mission so I can't ask for his help, but are you free?
Hopeful-Powerful-Sincere-Entreaty

I have a trip I could use someone with your experience with magic to help me with!
Enthusiastic-Hesitant-Pause
 
"Hey-"

Oh, good. Here they went again. Corin didn't quite wince, and she didn't quite sigh, but maybe it was just because she couldn't really decide which of the two was more appropriate... or maybe it was just that she knew better than to do either. Silah was completely off, but she wasn't completely off in the murderous violence sense just yet - just the semi-coherent poetry sense. If Corin had a few more glasses of wine, she might have joked that it was worse than the alternative, but she wouldn't have meant it.

No, she definitely wouldn't have meant it.

So, Alaxel was a nuisance, and Silah liked him for some Unfathomable reason. And that meant they were probably keeping her around, which meant all Corin's careful shepherding was about to get much more challenging. At least she was experienced, she supposed. She put a hand out over her sister's shoulder - not touching, definitely not touching - but there enough that Silah would feel the presence of it and understand.

"Just... don't get in any deeper." Corin wasn't sure if that was even worth saying, and her sister's returned bubbly giggle didn't help the situation. Perhaps there wasn't any deeper to go. "I'll be nearby."

Always. Always. That was what she was here for. So that Silah would know that someone was there for her, when she was ready to come back - who would be there for her, no matter what. That was when Corin would hold her: when the horrors were too much to bear, and she needed someone to remind her, again, that she had once been human.

For now, she would just have to let Silah be whatever she wanted to be right now, and deal with the rest of the situation. She followed the young woman - Gabby - hoping that the place didn't twist so much that Corin couldn't find her. At least she didn't have to worry about finding her sister. There was nothing in this world or the next or any in between that could keep them apart.

"Hey! Gabby? Are you... all right? I'm sorry, I know that was..." Corin trailed off, letting her words fail her, because sometimes being wordless was what was needed. "My sister's... like that, sometimes. And that guy's weird, but maybe they'll distract each other. Do you... still want to come with us, at all, and see if we can find the person you're looking for?"


====

Oh, Corin was going farther away. Silah watched her, thinking about drawing her back, but no - sometimes she needed her sister to be a little farther away. Sometimes, when there were... things that needed to be done. That was when her sister needed to be farther away, so that things weren't done to her sister. They both understood this. Now was... hm, not one of those times. But still, it was all right for her sister to be a little father away.

Silah put her finger in her teacup instead, down down down, wondering if it would ever reach the bottom of the abyss. Perhaps never, perhaps there was only the drowning deep and the turning tides and the - oh, no, there was the bottom. It was only porcelain, after all. Not bone china.

"Do -they- ever call you a wrong nuisance?"
 
Gabrielle wasn't sure if she wanted a drink or just a drink. Water or booze? Or maybe a Mountain Dew. She sure did love that junk. Probably because it was bad for her and she enjoyed doing things that weren't good for her. That of course was why she was always in trouble and why she was kidnapped. Shivering at that memory, the mutant clenched her jaw and fought to force the memory out of her head.

Fuck it, a  drink it is.

Internally making a decision, she made it to the bar counter and ordered a double shot of whisky on ice. Maybe her sister was right in that getting shitfaced was always the answer. Maybe. Grasping her glass, she glanced over her shoulder at the appearance of Corin. Was she alright? No, but like always, she'd survive. The model always did despite it all.

"I'm fine, really. It's a bit talking to my sister... annoying but necessary." Gabby drank on her booze while turning to face the other female. Did she still want to go? Might as well, not like she had any actual leads. Flashing, her winning model smile, she nodded her head as she spoke.

"Absolutely I'm still wanting to go with ya. Got to find my sister after all. Hopefully that guy isn't a pain in the ass though."
 
"You're right to worry," Alaxel replied to Silah without preamble and with a tone suddenly devoid of mirth. A weariness the weight of the passing eons clung to the spaces between his words, echoing in a space beyond hearing.

"Eventually she might come to understand what we know, little one," the Va'nyrian added whilst softly gesturing towards Silah's tea cup with his chin.

"The abyss, the void, infinity's edge, the primordial dearth and lack by any other name. It awaits just beyond, always," he said while he moved to rap his left knuckles on the table. His hand hit something before it touched the table, and briefly fuzzed before smoothly disappearing up to his forearm.

The warrior trickster didn't bother to hide a grimace of pain; Fools and Gods both knew one did not caress reality by the shared boundary between existence and nonexistence without swift consequences, and he'd been both enough times to know he was getting off easy with his little bit of showmanship.

His arm ended in a mangled mass of gore and metal when he pulled it back with the same casual ease. Small pinpricks of light arced within the exposed biomechanical musculature as the limb started to visibly knit itself back together.

"I too, remind them of that with my presence sometimes. They don't need to call me a wrong nuisance, little one, I do that on my own."

He smiled suddenly, his head tilting to the side as if hearing something on the air, and a measure of mirth returned to his tone as he sensed himself being briefly thought of.

"So it is from a place of eminent hypocrisy that I can reassure you, it would take your sister a long time and even then you'd probably have to do or say something...monumentally stupid", Alaxel finished, wincing internally at the irony as he re-lived his argument with his brother once again.
 
The older gentleman sat at the edge of the bar staring down at the amber liquid in his glass, lost in a haze of memories that played like a worn-out film reel. His gloved hand drummed a soft rhythm against the cool crystal, a beat belonging to some forgotten melody lodged deep in the recesses of his mind.

Once upon a time, he had been striking—a figure of quiet strength and sharp edges. But time, relentless and indifferent, had carved its story across his features. The jet-black hair of his youth had faded into a weathered silver, a cruel echo of days long gone. His blue eyes, which had once been piercing as ice, now seemed dulled, weighed down by decades of hard-won fights and weary defeat. Scars crisscrossed his face, silent witnesses to battles fought and survived—most of them.

But now, there was only one battle left.

He had come here seeking answers, hoping to bury the ghosts of his past once and for all. The drink in his hand was supposed to be a companion to his reflection, a means to drown the echoes of regret. Just as he lifted the glass to his lips, a flicker of movement caught his eye.

At first, he thought it was a trick of the dim light—a cruel jest of his imagination. But no, there it was again. A shadow made flesh. A ghost.

No.

It should have been a ghost. After all this time, how could it be him? How could he still look the same? Hell, he looked younger, as if the years had skipped over him entirely, a mockery of the burdens they’d laid upon others.

“Hello, Ragenard,” the man said, his voice as rough as gravel, each word heavy with equal parts disbelief and bitterness.

The older gentleman didn’t need to look twice to confirm it. That bastard hadn’t changed a bit.
 
Hmm. Corin wasn't entirely sure what to make of everything Gabby had said. She slid onto the stool beside her, setting the almost-empty wineglass down on the bar and listening as best as she could. It was the parts about Gabby's sister that confused her the most, she thought. Sometimes it was strange to think that other people had sisters, and that other people's sisters were... not like Silah.

Corin could never be annoyed at her sister. It just... couldn't happen. If she ever lost that connection, Silah... well, there would be no pulling her back. There was a certain feeling that came with the unassailable knowledge that if she ever took one wrong step, into anger, into annoyance, into hatred - that would be the end of it, for Silah. She would descend, as they all did, into madness, until she was killed.

It was lonely, that feeling. Lonely and not, because she always had her sister - but there wasn't anyone else, and there never could be. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like, to walk off in a huff, but she couldn't do it.

"I'm not worried about him," Corin said, deciding that statement was neutral enough. No, of all the things that she was worried about, Alaxel-the-nuisance didn't rank very high on the list. "What's your sister like?"
 
The wrong-nuisance spoke of endings, which Silah found interesting - or perhaps it was the others that found it interesting, and she was merely a passenger to her own amusement. The Nexus did not end, however - only his hand, which had gone elsewhere and been unmade.

"Oh?" Silah sat up rather more at this display, intrigued, watching the sinews rework themselves into alignment with their neither-friends-nor-enemies. She reached out across the table, setting her teacup where his hand would have been, had it still been there, fully expecting him to hold it as she let go and sat back once more.

"A-lax-el." She tried the name, piecewise, in little spurts of growth rather than all at once. "I think... You. Are." A pause, as a smile blossomed on her lips; a small thing, but the expression gathered in her eyes, and it seemed it might grow, if it did not die before then.

"Becoming."
 
It was hard… keeping a facade up in front of strangers. She didn’t want them to know just how upset she was about her sister and how lonely she felt in the strange environment. Why did things have to be so damn hard? Shifting on the stool once Corin took the other one, Gabby leaned on her arm, head resting on her hand as she slowly sipped on the whisky. There was a brief moment in which she wanted to just gulp it down in a few sips, but she didn’t. She couldn’t afford to get shit-faced in the presence of strangers.

“Mmm… I’m not necessarily worried about him, but he sure knows how to push my buttons. It’s infuriating.” Grumping softly even as she spoke, the brunette managed to shrug before her facade broke for just a second at the question about her sister. Taking a huge gulp of the liquid, she shuddered as it ran down her throat to join the rest of the fluids in her gut.

“A sot.” Those two words were out before she could stop them and Gabrielle cringed at her harshness. She quickly continued though it was difficult describing her sister to a stranger. “She’s more of a fighter than anything. Doesn’t let anyone tell her to do something. She loves to boss me around, but also takes care of me. I guess… I guess you could say that she’s protective over me or at last she was when we were together. She’s got a temper though and she couldn’t control her abilities for a while, which caused a lot of damage in our family bar. That upset our parents and well, there was a lot of fighting and arguing. She’s friggen hard headed… but, I miss her so much. She was so hard on me, but now I understand why. If she had been with me, maybe I would’t have gotten kidnapped and … stuff.” Her voice trailed off and she finished off her drink, waving for another double shot of whisky.

“I miss her stupid ass.”
 
"That sounds complicated." Corin didn't hesitate before the last word, the way most people did when they were trying to think of what to say or trying to decide if complicated was suitably polite. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't, but the situation was complicated and pretending it wasn't wouldn't do anyone any good.

She finished her drink, and since Gabrielle was already flagging down the bartender for a refill, nodded for one as well. Though - she was a lot less likely to have problems with two glasses of white wine than Gabrielle was with several shots - or if she wasn't, that spoke more to the situation than anything else so far.

"I'm sure she misses you, too." This was said softly, not as a platitude, but with certainty. "Where I'm from, they teach us - our fighters, our God-touched - they need someone around who can remind them what it's like not to fight. Someone who can remind them how to be human again, or remind them what being human even means. My sister... she knows that she can forget, because I will be there to remind her, as many times as it takes."

Corin shrugged, almost shyly in her own way. "Sometimes it isn't easy, being the ones who remember."

She didn't often say things like that, and certainly not when Silah was there, but it wasn't an unknown quantity. That was why the Wardens had an entire order devoted to keeping an eye on their God-touched. It gave them the knowledge and the training of what was to be done, but also the comraderie of knowing that they weren't the only ones going through those things. Cael-Rielle wasn't always perfect, but at least she had always had support. Perhaps Gabby hadn't, and that would have made things even more challenging.

Corin had noted that kidnapping bit, certainly, but she wasn't sure if she was meant to press, so instead she just left it open. If Gabrielle wanted to talk about it, well, after that much whiskey she ought to have found the courage - and if she didn't, then Corin knew enough not to press.
 
Complicated? Yeah, that was the story of her life. Running her fingers along the counter of the bar, Gabby looked over in surprise at Corin’s words. Did her big sister miss her? Hopefully, but the way they left each other was after a fight and she wasn’t able to apologize for words spoken in anger. A soft sigh slipped out and she managed a shrug. Yeah, maybe she was right.

“Things always were complicated when it comes to the family. I don’t know what my dad thought would happen when he raised us both in a bar. It’s not like we had a normal upbringing.” Gabby shrugged and was more than happy when her glass was refilled with more whisky. This had to be her last glass though. She couldn’t lose control, not here in a strange place with unknown people. That could be so very detrimental.

“I hope she misses me. I often wonder if my parents miss us or what they’re doing with life now. I lost contact with them a long time ago when I started focusing mostly on my modeling.” Gabrielle was a bit embarrassed by that, knowing her parents tried to get into contact with her, but she constantly blew them off. Oh well, wasn’t anything she could do about it in the moment. Instead, she was going to shift the focus onto Corin, hopefully.

“Thanks for listening to me, Corin. I didn’t mean to dump on you and I won’t scar you with my horrific life.” Trying to flash a smile, she sipped on the whisky and leaned on one arm, hand resting against her cheek.

“How about you? What’s up with your sister and you? What brought you to this place?” Part of her had wanted to talk to Corin about her kidnapping, but the other part of her didn’t want to relieve that time of her life even if it wasn’t that long ago.

Stupid kidnapper…
 
"It's all right. I don't mind," Corin said, shrugging. "I doubt people end up here without... having gone through certain circumstances, in life." She didn't really want to say horrific, but looking around at what clientele she could see and thinking about the oddness when they had entered this place - no, it wasn't the sort of place you ended up, when your life was normal.

The answers turned to questions, and Corin was quiet for a moment, watching her sister's interaction with Alaxel, not so much just in case I need to step in there as undoubtedly when I need to step in there. She wasn't sure that Gabrielle wanted the answers she was asking for. It wasn't that Corin was particularly secretive, it was more that she had found those answers seemed to bother other people more than they bothered her. For her, it was just the way things were. She drew her thumb along the edge of the bar, etching at an invisible bit of something with her nail for a moment.

"There's a parasite-plague where we're from. Our gods... use people to stop the infected. Silah is one of those people. When the gods take over... they have different priorities, than people do. So - when whatever has been done is done, I talk her back to humanity. Or, as close as she can get, any more." There was a lot of information left out of that synopsis, Corin knew, but she didn't want to overload Gabrielle too much. She had learned to avoid some of the information, things like the gods are more concerned with eradication than innocence, things like I sit in a field of corpses with her, and talk to her until she remembers who she is... things like the first person she killed was our father.

No, those phrases wouldn't help, not here. Corin skipped over them, ignoring them like the rest of the corpses.

"Anyway. We have four gods. We're supposed to have five. So... Silah's been sent to find the other one. That's how we ended up here."
 
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