Conditions of Absolute Reality

[Will Stanton]

Alright, so we have some sort of damaged telepath, and a dead person, probably a missing person. Coolcoolcoolcoolcool.

"Do you know anything about Emmie? What happened to her; if she had any friends or family?"

[Mooncalf]

"Nope!" she says cheerfully. "Like I said, the brain was already empty. She had shoes and shorts and a shirt and a big bag full of more clothes and stuff for sleeping and eating."

[Will Stanton]

Shit.

"Do you still have that bag? I'd like to see it, if I could."

[Mooncalf]

"Sure!" She doesn't really know why but she has no reason not to. It's Bouba Will and she trusts them.

It only takes a couple minutes to walk to the new building of flats for mutants in need and Mooncalf heads straight for a spot on the wall next to a window. She slaps her hand against the bricks and moves the density way down so she and Will can walk right through into her room. There's not much to it except for the big traveler's backpack and the contents that are strewn about. There's a sleeping bag that's been added to the bed, a couple of changes of clothes, mostly comfortable summer-wear. Some protein-bars sit on a table next to some bottles of water along with some empty ones and loose wrappers. There's a compass and map and pocket-knife in various states of unfolding (or rather incompetent refolding), a turned-off cell-phone, a small tarp, a gas cooker and stackable pots and cups and a bit of paracord and a couple simple ground anchors. It looks very much like a hiker or backpacker's stuff, unpacked by someone who has no idea what most of it is.

[Will Stanton]

Will stares for a moment as they pass through the brick wall -- this certainly falls under 'weird shit that mutants can do', but any time you're exposed to something for the first time, it's interesting and a bit unsettling. "I guess that's more convenient than using the door?" she said, uncertainly.

"Right. That's a lot of stuff! Let's see if we can't find something with, uh, her picture on it. So we can figure out where Emmie belonged, yes?"

[Mooncalf]

"Oh. There's some here." she says and digs through what's left in the backpack until she pulls out what is - to Will - very obviously a Massachusetts driver's license and a US passport.

[Will Stanton]

Well, shit,

"Well, shit," Will sighed.

"I don't suppose you've ever been to Massachusetts? None of this seems familiar?"

[Mooncalf]

"No. But everyone sure seems obsessed about that."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, people don't pop up out of nowhere. There's probably some people looking for Emmie, wondering what happened to her. Not to mention, if someone caused this to happen. Attacked her. He would still be out there."

And you still might be her, just with some severe traumatic mental block.

[Mooncalf]

"Hmmm... I don't know if I'd want to go look for people who hurt Me. And people who expect M. E. might not like Me."

[Will Stanton]

"But they might need to know what happened to Emmie, right? People miss people when they're gone.

...Does someone out there miss you?"

[Mooncalf]

"Nyoes." she makes a weird sound trying to pronounce both yes and no at the same time. "Not like that. Gosh, I wish I could just tell Bouba and then I think you'd understand. Okay, maybe as a story... Just remember that this isn't literal. It can be, but... gah." she says, flapping her hands in apparent frustration.

"I'm from the Far-Far-Away on the underside of the iceberg where lots of squids and fish and bacteria and plankton and lots of other things live. And we work on making the sun twinkle just right through the ice, all the time. Some of us make the ice melt or freeze in the right spots and shapes or cast shadows, dig up a little bit, make more, some record the images we make in the ice and how they bounce through it. It's a lot of work but it's great because we get to watch all these things that filter down from the sun and make shimmers and sparks we could never dream of. And my job was to make sure everyone's tentacles are nice and clean and that chewing up ice doesn't hurt the teeth too much and just... helping make everything go a little easier."

"But down there nothing is really awake. They just react to the light and dream dream dream a little dream. And how can I miss them while I'm dancing in the sun and know I'm just a dream in the ice myself for a little while."

[Will Stanton]

That was all very strange, and very important sounding, and clarified that Mooncalf wasn't from 'round these parts. And this was all important and relevant backstory, and something Will would have to ask her to repeat at some point.

That point being some time when her brain hadn't shut down at the name 'Bouba'.

"You...you know about Bouba? Is it OK? Is it alright? The last time I saw it..." she said, her voice breaking in almost a panic.

[Mooncalf]

"Of course I do, silly! It's fine." she nods emphatically. "Maybe a little wobblier than usual." she giggles.

[Will Stanton]

"That's....that's a relief. The last time I saw it, it was..." she said, running out of words and just gesturing with her hands. As if it was indescribable, as if it had happened just off panel for some reason.

[Mooncalf]

"Doing what it always does. Helping." she smiles broadly. "And some things are too fundamental to ever go away."

[Will Stanton]

"And you...are you like it, in some way? You're another Bouba-thing?"

[Mooncalf]

"Another Bouba-thing." she huffs with indignation. "Are you just another Emmie-thing?"

[Will Stanton]

Will, still shifted into a copy of Mooncalf with the exception of the crystal bits Mooncalf had controlled, stared back at her for a moment. "Well, that goes back to what we were talking about, right? In some ways, I am an, uh, Emmie-thing. I may only be people in some ways, but I AM people in some ways. And I'm originally from America, and I..." Will said, looking around. "I like wearing comfortable clothes?" she added, running out of similarities surprisingly quick. Camping. Blurgh.

[Mooncalf]

"Oh. Yes, it's kind of like that." she nods.

[Will Stanton]

"This is a bit beyond my paygrade," Will sighed. "But are you...are you stuck here? Or is this somewhere you want to be?"

[Mooncalf]

"Everything's a little stuck here. But I'm okay, this is very new and interesting!"

[Will Stanton]

"Well..." Will trailed off. "Stuck is no good. But I get new and interesting. I'm all about new and interesting. As long as you're OK, it's....OK for now. But if that changes, you find me, you tell me, right?"

[Mooncalf]

"I don't think there's anything you can do, but okay!" she says cheerfully.

[Will Stanton]

"I can do a lot of things! That's my expertise, Doing Things. You can ask anybody."

[Mooncalf]

"Duh. That's what we are. Thing doers. Purpose fulfillers. Pattern producers. A practiced motion. Action etched on stars." she rambles and seems like she'll just keep on going.

[Will Stanton]

"And some of us are sit-on-our-butt-ers. And if you're good with where you are, then you're good.

But then, you wouldn't have freaked out quite so much in the quad if you really were good, right?"

[Mooncalf]

"This place needs a lot of Meanings I have to get from others. You know what's a Bench and what's a Tree because, well, you're Bouba and that's what you do. You have all those Meanings and Understandings. Without that it's scary here. And Scary isn't even something I can understand by myself. That's not a thing I can push up and down in..." she squints as if she's trying to decipher something but at the same time kind of tilts her head and looks up and to the side. "Ay-tohms? Wow, that's a bad Meaning. Worse than Tree. But it's all just stuff that collapsed into their own little rules and wiggling around accordingly and there's no inherent 'Tree-ness' to anything without someone making it so."

[Will Stanton]

"You're losing me a bit. I'm not Bouba; I'm just a guy. And meanings and understandings are, I guess, just part of the human condition -- we want to catalog and sort things to help us understand."

[Mooncalf]

"That's exactly it! Everything here is just what's left when most of what could be falls away to be something that is. But without Meanings and Understandings it's all just debris spinning around and around forever. The Meanings are what make it sing and I can't hear it all on my own. You're very good at it because it's what makes you special, it's in your nature. Not just to be but to be Something. To wholly express what it means to be a Hat. Or a Sewer Grate. Or a Person. Or a Grapefruit."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, if I can help you, uh, 'hear' the meanings, I'm happy to, of course. Anything you need explained more. But you being here is something we're going to have to look into, you know?"

[Mooncalf]

"Sounds boring, but okay. Do I need to do anything for that?"

[Will Stanton]

"At the moment, no; I'll talk to Ashlie and whatnot and we'll figure out what's going on. We'll probably have some questions and things at that point, but until then, uh, feel free to continue exploring meanings? I suppose?"