Change is in the Air (OTA)

[bridge_princess]

Who: Parsee and you!
What: December Catch-All
Where: The Shrine, Bridge and Around
When: Any time in December
Content Warnings: *laughs* nothing serious. She's angsty as hell about the shrine change, but it's all harmless today. I'll update if necessary


* Shrine Freakout * General Shrine * The Blank Shrine * Mt Silver * The Beach * Hammerhead *
* Widcard *


(Haha, I can't resist poking some fun at Parsee. Top Levels Below)

Comments

[forwearemany]

Though they must be exposed to flame, they are not lit on fire as part of the blooming process. The flowers produce both light and heat of their own.

(They chatter.)

On the island of Cahypdo, they were part of an event called the Festival of Cycles: one ritual involved tying living lantern flowers to a naturally grown floatation device and allowing them to float into the sky.

[bridge_princess]

Hmmm... that sounds familiar...

Did that ritual have anything to do with the dead? Because that sounds a lot like an old ritual back where I come from where we'd light lanterns and float them on a river to light the way back to the realm of the dead.

[forwearemany]

Negative. The festival was not one of death but rebirth.

However, a ceremony similar to that which you describe was performed on Enso for those lost.

(They pull in a little, look down at themselves.

They had set those little lanterns adrift again and again, until there was nothing left. It did not amount to even a tenth of those they had lost.)

[bridge_princess]

I see. Yeah it sort of works for both. At O-bon, the families were supposed to get together with their spirits and ancestors. The lights lit the way back to the land of the dead. A lot of worship was about keeping the spirits appeased and letting them know they were loved.

It's how you kept them spirits, not youkai, in some cases. So, they had it on Enso. [Or at least something like that.]

[forwearemany]

Affirmative.

(Several programs wonder if the lack of sufficient lanterns on Enso means that souls were lost.)

[bridge_princess]

[She might have caught some of that undercurrent because she grunted and tapped her lips before replying.]

Uh, tell the others... Enso isn't the same as Earth, so the answer isn't definitely yes or no unless you knew there. On Earth, there were always solutions eventually. Just some were less... pleasant than others.

[forwearemany]

...Acknowledged.

(They continue to chatter to themselves.)

Many of those we have lost died on Rannoch. There is no one on Rannoch to mourn them.

(Only the Quarians, and they won't care.

...Might be a good time for a new topic.)

[bridge_princess]

Right... I liked that ceremony, but here?

I don't really know that it works or means the same thing here. Maybe we can come up with something that we could do here. I kind of feel like a festival might be nice, you know? Just not sure what we should do here.

[forwearemany]

There is currently no death here.

(Would it even be useful, they wonder?)

A celebration?

[bridge_princess]

Exactly. O-Bon is for the dead. There's nobody dead here.

[Never you mind that she wasn't 100% convinced most of the creatures they dealt with were alive in the traditional sense. The Void didn't understand things clearly.]

We... could set up a festival one of these days and call it "Crapfall" for the day that crap fell out of the sky and the world came into existence.

[...she was only partially serious there.]

[forwearemany]

Perhaps. However, crap did not fall from the sky.

(It was more like nothing existed, and then there was something?)

No sky existed to fall from.

(Because of course they'll critique her naming choice with utter seriousness.)

[bridge_princess]

Ok, so "Whitefall" is probably more accurate, and there might be a better word choice than fall. Some of it just appeared. But "Crapfall" has a better roll off of the tongue, and it'll make people look at us funny, which is its own prize isn't it?

[Yeah, she kind of expected the semantics game there. Heh.]

...and really, I'm pretty sure that the sky over our heads isn't really a sky yet. It's more painted up there.

[forwearemany]

"The objects in the sky can be interacted with. They are not painted."

Legion actually rode around on one of the floating objects. They would know. Their argument here isn't entirely about semantics either: the sky may not work like the skies they are used to, but it is very real.

[bridge_princess]

"That's... ok, that's fair. And the falling stars can be touched when they hit the land," she muttered considering that for a moment. "I meant more that that shouldn't happen. Stars should be insane distances away. They're more like props on a stage if that makes sense? Though I'm not even sure that's right. It's more what it thinks a sky should look like."

[forwearemany]

"Yes." It's a really weird sky.

"We have ridden a floating object." They had to climb all the way to the top of Mt. Silver to even try, but they managed to grab and climb up onto one of the weird shapes in the sky.

[bridge_princess]

"Which is what got you way up there to see just what it's like. Is it possible to get pat the colored sky to white if you go high enough?" Because if she was going to bet, she would have bet that might be the case...

[forwearemany]

"Uncertain. Once we were able to sit on a floating object, we did not go higher."

They weren't actually certain that they wouldn't fall for some reason or other. Plus, it was tiring enough just getting up there.

[bridge_princess]

"I think the only person I saw who might have gotten that high was this big-ass dragon someone brought with them. Called it a Cha...Char...hmmm, Chareezard? Close anyway. I don't know how many we have who can fly all the way up there." She nodded afterwards, tapping her lips. "It's far enough up that it's hard to test anyway isn't it?"

[forwearemany]

It takes a couple thousandths of a second for Legion to remember that Humans and similar organics sometimes use ass as a form of emphasis, and they spend those fractions of a moment trying to figure out what an ass dragon would be before it clicks.

"Yes. To reach the sky without flight, one must climb to the summit of the mountain. This will only enable access to the lowest objects."

[bridge_princess]

"I kind of have to pile things up to reach that far. I'm sort of on the shorter side," she admitted, unaware of the second that almost passed considering her choice of syntax in describing a 'big ass dragon.' Shrugging, she muttered something about wishing she was a little taller.

"It's definitely away up there. Maybe someone can figure out how to fly up and see what's going on, if there's an 'above' the sky part."

[forwearemany]

"Do you desire assistance?"

They can probably help her up there, if she's interested in climbing up a whole mountain just to sit on a giant weird floating thing for a while.

"If we find someone able to fly, we will ask."

[bridge_princess]

"Well, it's more of a curiosity, but if we find a way up to the sky it would be good to know. of course, it might get pushed further up, right?" She was curious about what was going on with the sky, but for the moment it wasn't her first priority. "If you happen to find someone, though, send them my way."

[forwearemany]

"Though possible, it is likely that pushing the sky further up would be caused by a general perception of the sky as unreachable. Many societies have already proven this perception false."

Airplanes can reach the sky. And spaceships can reach the stars. Even if the sky and stars are usually very different from this.

"Affirmative."

They don't know this, but soon enough they'll have a spaceship and be able to reach the sky themselves, and take her--or anyone else--with them.

[bridge_princess]

"... you know... that actually makes a certain amount of sense. It would be us thinking it was unreachable, but in the end the sky's just air, right? So it's whether you can get above the sky or not." Or something like that. Don't ask her to get the technical side of this correct.

Ooooh, she would love that obviously and be jealous.

[forwearemany]

"It is dependent on your definition of sky. Defined as the upper atmosphere, it is possible. However, if visible regions of outer space are included in the definition, the possibility diminishes: a considerable quantity of celestal objects are so distant their light had to travel for thousands, even millions of years before reaching us. The sky can be reached, but you cannot go beyond it."

They're pretty sure they've had a conversation about this before, actually.

"This is true of our universe of origin, and data suggests it is true of many others. We are uncertain if it is true here." It seems ... unlikely? The part of the universe that isn't just void is fairly small. Concern about becoming lost in it has kept them from going out far enough to see that the sky is just a dome enclosing that part, but they would not be surprised to learn that is the case.