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[princess_of_ida]

Three for the gleam of a jewel or a smile.



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[princess_of_ida]

No need. I want to do something special for you. Just... have an open mind. And don't be afraid to ask questions.

[seaboard]

[ HRM. ]

I will do my best not to guess then.

[ But in an effort to distract herself: ]

I have received a most interesting gift from the Minstrel! It is so pretty, and the colours on it are so bright.

[princess_of_ida]

I haven't turned my token in yet. What did you get?

[seaboard]

[ She sends the mental picture of the most ridiculous pink children's wristwatch that barely fits her but she's adjusted it as best she can to make it work.

Clearly just!! So pleased!! Look how pretty it is!! ]

[princess_of_ida]

[Ianthe decided not to tell Gilia she had one of those when she was five.]

Pretty watch. Does it work?

[seaboard]

It does. But are there too many hours on it? I am not sure. I have never seen anything like it! It's so clever! It lights up too, sometimes.

[princess_of_ida]

Huh. How many is too many?

[seaboard]

I am not sure. How many hours are meant to be in the day?

[princess_of_ida]

Here there are 24 hours in a day, as is the same of the First House. Earth. Ida has a 16 hour day, technically.

[seaboard]

Oh.

It has 28. The watch. It counts 28 hours.

[princess_of_ida]

That's interesting. I'd need access to my databases to find a 28 hour world.

I'm glad you like it. The dinosaurs are a nice touch.

[seaboard]

I will just set it back in the morning to keep it running the same, then.

[ hum, hum, hum. it's just! so neat! ]

Dinosaurs. Is that what they are called? Do they come from space, too? Have you seen them?

[princess_of_ida]

My understanding is that before humans even existed, dinosaurs walked the Earth as the dominant species. They went extinct after a meteor hit the land.

I guess you could say they were Earth's dragons, only not spirits. Just really big reptiles.

[seaboard]

[ She thinks for a minute. ]

Oh, I think we have some of those!

Is the Woolly Mammoth a type of these creatures?

[princess_of_ida]

In the vein of being megafauna around that time, but on Earth I think the wooly mammoth was around when humans started popping up.

Unfortunately, there nothing left on Earth. Though there might be in the oceans.

[seaboard]

That would make sense, I have spoken to some whales and turtles, many of whom are hundreds of years old, they tell us of the changes that happen. And of what has not.

[princess_of_ida]

Do you know what nuclear radiation is?

[seaboard]

[ Please hold while that translates into iron age.

Or you know, doesn't. ]

Cursed air circle?

[princess_of_ida]

No.

[How does she explain...]

You know how when people are in direct sunlight in the height of summer too long, they get burned by the power of the sun? Imagine if someone was bonded with the spirit of the sun and then did that most accursed thing and violated the spirit to unleash the power of the sun upon all the land.

That is what nuclear radiation would be like.

[seaboard]

[ She frowns, trying to understand it as she explains, and yes, that does make a little bit more sense. ]

I follow, I think? Everything would die, the waters would boil, the land would be sick?

[princess_of_ida]

Correct. That's what happened to the First House, to Earth, ten thousand years ago. It's why the Great Resurrection was necessary.

It's also why there is no life left there. But a myriad is a long time. By now, there might be life in the oceans again. Deep within.

[seaboard]

[ That is such an awful thing to hear she cannot quite - cope in the idea of it. ]

Perhaps yes, often what lives in the depths is so beyond all living beings of the surface. Much of what troubles them, is not even an idea to life in the deep.

[princess_of_ida]

Then maybe the First House isn't a grave. That's oddly comforting.

[seaboard]

... I cannot imagine such destruction as you speak of it. But... if it should help...

I would ask for discretion. This is matter of the mystery rites, reserved only to the highest of my family, as only we are able to have forms that allow us to go to such depths, even of our own people.

But I have seen the places in the deep, myself, at the bottom of the Great Sea. The old First-Child guided me there himself, with my younger sister, as we came of age, now my brother does it. Where the Sea-Father took the sparks from the Land-Mother when she danced creation to her own splintering. At the deepest places, first it goes cold, and then it becomes very, very hot as you reach the place where the Sea hides over Land, this is the place of their union.

There at the bottom is the nursery of life. Where the first beings were cared for, from long, long before there were birds or beasts or snakes or fish. No trees or flowers. Certainly long, long before man.

They are so small, so fine, so delicate as to feel like they would break if you breathed on them too harshly. Yet strong, for the pressure at the bottom of the ocean is immense, it could crush even iron.

[ that overwhelming pressure Ianthe had felt that day was in part how they endured it, by embodying it. ]

Those creatures, at the very center, made at the very beginning, they have existed long before the follies of man, and they are fed from the heat and hot-poison air that breaks out from the land below. What would kill all other life, sustains them, and continues the cycle. So what would surely kill all other beings, in that place, would never hurt them. From them, all life comes, from the greatest of forms to the lesser of creatures, all will be born once more, even if it might take centuries and centuries for it to occur.

[princess_of_ida]

[Longer than that, as it has already been ten thousand years. But Ianthe had only seen the ocean from a distance when they landed at Canaan House. There could be something in that water alive and she wouldn't have known.]

...thank you. For giving me a little hope. I think I'm going to sit with that for a while.

Come see me tomorrow, okay? It's important.