======The Rhythm Inside======

=====Planning can go up here, if you want=====


=====Writeup=====

//You drift, searching for familiar minds amongst the indescribable landscape. You pass a form which jars against the fluidity. It moves without movement, buzzing with a static which forbids you from access. But if you listen closely enough, it sounds like the sea.//

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“So what does it… do, exactly?” Shansa rolls the phial between her fingers curiously. “It… makes time? Some would call that heretical. Still, we could all use a little more time… Thank you. I will… give it a go.”

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//You return, now to the marinous form. It tumults in multitudinous foam and when you battle to its centre you hear nothing but a roar of panic.//

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“You can keep your little concoction. I…” she pauses, her gaze shifting downwards. Her feet dig into the ground slightly. “I have never felt so far from the Time Being. I just felt so… helpless. So distant from everything tangible, everything I can actually //affect//. I am glad you’ve found your communion. But I will have to seek my own.”

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You borrow a playing card from Raul, one evening. The old folds of a crane are still baked into your fingers, but a boat is less familiar. You try to recall Shansa’s movements: halving, then halving again; unhalving and taking the corners. It takes a few attempts, but eventually you have something serviceable. It catches quickly, the ink browning and burning a bright yellow. And as you watch the smoke rise, you feel it: a slight hum, a gentle fermata in the crackling, holding for just a moment.

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//You find, next, the crackling of a radio, or perhaps parchment, wrapped in a glass bubble. It yields a little when you knock, rippling and shimmering like oil.//

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“No, thank you.” Raul smiles, but shakes their head. “I was never one for… rituals. But thank you all the same. I would, of course, welcome any addition to the time capsule. If it has brought you such connection, then it would be a shame for it to be lost. As for the rest of the Bastion… I think you should be prudent. You say it’s a… culmination of Faith. I think some may not view it with quite as much reverence.”

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You set aside one phial of the bolus, carefully wrapping it in its explanatory note. You pause, hand hovering above the jar. This little collection, an attempt at a microcosm, is as potent as any drug, though not yours to take. Yet when you rest the phial (on one of Dr. Finch’s many ties), you feel the spectre of a hand yet to come mirroring you.

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//The fragments of another’s Faith cement to you that this is the right choice: at last, you have found the synthesis to end your search -- you have formed your triadic community.//

//These other minds, frozen as sculptures, ignorant to the flow you perceive, appear now not as lesser but merely… orthogonal. They extend and slip and journey as you do, but in a direction you cannot perceive.//

//In time, perhaps it could be learnt. But for now--//

//This is enough.//

//And won’t they just watch you dance.//


{[]}{{tag>writeup6 gm_ben complete}}