Given the losses and tragedy of the recent festival, Jigano knew Maea's secret must be dire indeed for her to be so worried about it, but he was weary with grief and guilt. He could no longer afford the luxury of breaking beneath it, though, not with Rory withdrawn from the world and Amalia lying wounded in the infirmary. Caiside and Isla were dead as well, lost to LongNight, and where once he had leaned on them for support, now he forced himself to be strong in their stead. 'No hero,' Safrin had called him, and she had been right. But he would not let that stop him from moving forward. He had made too many promises, fallen too many times before. Now it was his turn to be the steady one, and he braced himself for the revelations that Maea wished to share.
She spoke of the past as the dark settled gently around them, starlight and moonlight dappling the fields beyond the lantern's glow and hiding the remains of the carnage from easy sight. He nodded at the mention of the Voice and her portals, now common knowledge, but the dream...
Metal and tubes made sense with what he had seen of Ascended technology, and the magic-melded technology the Rain of Stars had dropped on his own world. He didn't know how it could do what it did, but he knew enough to know it was possible, at least, and it lent all the more credence to Maea's 'dream' because she didn't know. A portal generator, one that could reach across time and space and reality itself, to pull people from...
Oh.
He blinked, going still as Maea went on, speaking of copies and simulated souls and memories that were not his own. Time seemed to slow around him as her words sank in, each one clear and meaningful but together creating an impossible whole. A copy A fascimile of someone who was still alive on a distant world, making his way through it a bitter, jaded man, one who had never met Amalia or Rory or Sam or Maea, never started a Guild or bonded to a gryphon. One who still had time and chance to get his head out of his own ass and go back to find Isuma and Hiraku and Val and Khonnir again...
He sat silently for some time, turning over her words and their implications, testing them for plausibility and probability. Finally he exhaled, as if he had been holding his breath that whole time, and suddenly realized part of his light headedness was from not breathing. "The dream..." he said at last, "the... vision. Do you know who sent it? The Voice, or Ludo, or... something else?"
She spoke of the past as the dark settled gently around them, starlight and moonlight dappling the fields beyond the lantern's glow and hiding the remains of the carnage from easy sight. He nodded at the mention of the Voice and her portals, now common knowledge, but the dream...
Metal and tubes made sense with what he had seen of Ascended technology, and the magic-melded technology the Rain of Stars had dropped on his own world. He didn't know how it could do what it did, but he knew enough to know it was possible, at least, and it lent all the more credence to Maea's 'dream' because she didn't know. A portal generator, one that could reach across time and space and reality itself, to pull people from...
Oh.
He blinked, going still as Maea went on, speaking of copies and simulated souls and memories that were not his own. Time seemed to slow around him as her words sank in, each one clear and meaningful but together creating an impossible whole. A copy A fascimile of someone who was still alive on a distant world, making his way through it a bitter, jaded man, one who had never met Amalia or Rory or Sam or Maea, never started a Guild or bonded to a gryphon. One who still had time and chance to get his head out of his own ass and go back to find Isuma and Hiraku and Val and Khonnir again...
He sat silently for some time, turning over her words and their implications, testing them for plausibility and probability. Finally he exhaled, as if he had been holding his breath that whole time, and suddenly realized part of his light headedness was from not breathing. "The dream..." he said at last, "the... vision. Do you know who sent it? The Voice, or Ludo, or... something else?"
